Hello,
mjyg. If the sticker price is the only thing keeping you from Cornell, then you should probably choose Cornell to avoid facing a potentially lifelong
What if? thereafter. It does have a stronger reputation, although Tennessee is a fine school, and your work experience and
slight preference for HR align better with the Cornell program. You also have to consider ROI. I say this a lot in my posts on such topics. But if graduates of one program start off at, say, $90K, and graduates of another start off at $120K, the difference in upfront costs can be erased within a few years. And brand recognition might put you on the faster track to promotion. Understand, I hate the business game. I have known plenty of brilliant people who never went to ivory tower schools and plenty of nitwits who did. But I also appreciate the way the world works, and people have collectively decided that the Cornell name and others like it matter a lot more than others.
Good luck, whatever you decide.
- Andrew