Least expensive schools?

[Holly86]

I am researching different grad schools, and I have 2 questions for you guys:

1. Which schools are the least expensive?

2. How much does the prestige and ranking of the school really matter after you graduate? Does it affect your job prospects?

I currently attend the University of Kansas, for psychology. I'd like to go into epidemiology. My school has an MPH program, but I don't think it's very well known in the public health arena... I would get in-state tuition though. I won't have any debt from my undergrad studies, but going 40 or 50 grand into debt for a master's makes me uneasy.

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[sucara]

A suggestion for the 1st questions:

Check out the University of Texas Health Sciences Center at Houston

Its ranked number 12 I think, good school, very very inexpensive compared to most of the other schools... AND Houston is not an expensive place to live at all. The website is below if you want to check it out.

http://www.sph.uth.tmc.edu/

 

[Holly86]

Unfortunately my boyfriend is a firefighter, and Texas is one of the 3 states that we can't move to because they have different regulations (he would have to start his training all over again). California and Florida are also out.

Thanks anyway, though.

 

[AndrewJ42]

There tends to be a region bias when it comes to professional degrees in general as a MPH from USC would be strong for Southern California as would a degree from UT-Houston be strong for that area. Prestige of a program is helpful in the case where you would wish to work in different areas of the country and have immediate recongnition of your degree.

A degree from a Top 10 Public Health school would give you creditability to an employer without having too much knowledge about the school personally. I.E., getting a degree at Johns Hopkins/Harvard/UNC/UWash/UMich/etc would probably get you a job anywhere in the country with somewhat east while a degree from lets say a lesser known SPH in New Mexico (making it up) would probably make it more difficult to compete with a person with a more "prestigious" degree.

It all really depends on where you'd like to work....good luck!