I'm sorry for having written such a drawn out reply. I'm on break after wrapping up my first year. I find myself with some spare time and a healthy dose of surprise at some of the opinions floating around here.
Others insist that an Ivy League school provides a quality education that would difinitely pay off after graduation, an opinion that I'm kinda drawn toward, but really skeptical about.
Your skepticism is well-founded. Unless the folks telling you that a Big Name school is worth it are willing to cover the difference in tuition out of their own pockets, I'd politely ignore their advice.
Minus all of the ridiculousness of how people are so paranoid about costs of education, think about it.
It strikes me as reasonable to be deeply uncomfortable with having $150k+ debt for a job that starts at $65k. You may disagree. To the OP, if those numbers spook you, I don't think you're being ridiculous or paranoid.
If you plan on sitting pretty in a clinic for the rest of your career and not want to venture out into your own business etc., then maybe Columbia (or other prestigious, yet highly expensive private schools) isn't the most ideal place for you to get your DPT. You are better off going to a state school to get your DPT.
It's hard to start a business when you're just trying to keep your head above water covering your old debts.
But what the posters on this forum fail to realize is that outside of our specialty, these degrees carry weight. I have spoken with numerous individuals in my quest to apply to schools on "all things being equal, who would you rather see?" and an overwhelming majority of people responded by the UNIVERSITY attended, and not anything else like sub-specialties.
Your premise of "all else being equal" makes for a somewhat irrelevant question. How many PTs are absolutely equal in all respects except for where they went to school? Would someone drive 10 miles longer to see someone from Columbia vs someone from a less expensive school? Would they go to the prestigious graduate if they had one fewer star on yelp relative to the state school PT? Half a star less?
Take a moment and think. Really think. What do you want to do with your career? This will make your choice of DPT programs easier.
For me, I want to be able to take a job because it's a good place to work and not necessarily because it pays the most. I want the option of taking a pay cut for a residency. I don't want to sacrifice my weekends to PRN work to pay down my debt. I might use that time to study for a specialty exam. I want to have the flexibility to one day start my own practice. Therefore I go to a reasonably priced state school.
I think when you go to more prestigious schools, you're paying for the opportunity to network with other people that could potentially be business partners in the future, similar when you're an undergraduate going to an Ivy League, you want to make friends with that kid with the rich family just in case.
If you're drowning in debt, rich people rarely want to enter into financial partnerships with you. That's part of how they stay rich. But they might employ you to their advantage if you are highly leveraged and have fewer viable options. That's how they get richer.
In cases such as with USC, you're making that investment to be part of the amazing alumni association they have, which may provide you with great opportunities and resources in the future for perhaps starting your own clinic, research, etc.
So you're taking on non-defaultable debt to invest substantially in something that
may perhaps lead to a relationship in the future that
may perhaps generate tangible benefits? There are plenty of people who run their own clinics and participate in research without having gone to big name schools. This seems like a tenuous benefit. And if you're paying down old loans, your willingness to risk a new business or do something non-income generating like research will go way down.
As a DPT, you will get a job anywhere as long as you have your license. The question is, the quality of the job.
Like someone mentioned on this thread, if you want to get hired at a good place then you would stand a higher chance coming from a school like Columbia than a less-known school.
A "bad place" will have to pay a higher salary than a "good place", right? The clinic where you see 1 patient an hour in downtown Denver is going to pay less than the clinic where you're supervising 3 PTAs in a high stress environment in Middle Nowhere, USA. At some level, it's just supply and demand. If you have a great deal of debt, you may be forced to work in the shoddy mill as opposed to the place you'd really like.