Santa Clara University or CSU Long Beach for MS Cs?

I have admits from both. SCU has higher fees but small batch size. CSU LB on other hand is cheaper than SCU.
Please suggest between these two and ignore the coronavirus thing in the discussion. :slight_smile:

SCU is a private university, the reason its tuition fee is high. Plus, it is near Silicon Valley. Along with job opportunities, living expenses will also be high. For the quality of education it provides, the college is fairly priced. Obviously, for an international student, the fees would be considerably high. But if that is your only concern then I’d recommend going to CSU. Another thing, SCU’s engineering department comes under the top 50 engineering departments. The college offers on-campus jobs to students, it will definitely help financially. Coming to the CS department, it offers specializations in data science, software engineering, information assurance, multimedia processing, computer networks, and computer architecture and systems.

About CSU Long Beach - It is cheaper because it is a public university. You will have to build a strong profile to get placed in a good company. Even the CS department is not that highly ranked. It is not much research-oriented. Now the positive points - CSU has a very low acceptance rate. So, kudos on getting an admit. There are various scholarships you can apply to further reduce your tuition fee. It is more of a meritocratic so good opportunities will come only if you have the skills. You won’t be able to use the brand name to get a job.

In all, there are more positives to SCU but it is definitely expensive for international students. CSULB is cheaper but the CS department is not highly ranked.