The Claremont Schools' Claremont Graduate School

First things first: Tuition.  Totals about 72k for the program.  Or 54k plus a big research paper.  Not sure which is worse, but there are a lot of courses that I'd like to take, so the four semesters (48 units) instead of three (36 units) maybe wouldn't be so bad.  It'd be 3 at a time.  They charge a bunch more per credit for more than 3, and there are very few semesterly costs, so it's more cost efficient.  Clearly, they mean for 3 at a time to be the best deal, so that's what I'd go with.  Back to money.

First, people keep telling me "Never pay for grad school." I need to look into this more, and the Honors College lady is the place to start (though I should probably learn her name first).  Second, they have a pretty well-organized financial assistance page, which is encouraging.

Third, it's in freaking California.  Not only would getting there be a problem, but I don't know what I'd do with my car, which probably couldn't make such a trip.  Regardless, it would cost $1000 to get there by car.  Let's see. 3000 miles divided by 20 mpg would be 150 gallons, so $450 in just gas, plus motels and food.  Yeah, probably $1000.  So the $250 on the plane ticket would be cheaper.  Maybe sell the car? There's plenty of both university-provided and -sanctioned housing available.  I don't know how much it costs, but some of them are furnished! They're probably more expensive, but within walking distance, but I can't imagine housing is exactly cheap.  Comparable to DC, though so is West Chester for some damn reason.

Also, I have a few friends out there that I might be able to live with should the need arise.  But let's call that Plan B.  Suffice to say that there are logistical concerns.

In short, I like this school, and if it were closer and cheaper, it would be a no-brainer. But it's not, so it's...a brainer?

Expect a second one of these on the other current contender, University of Pittsburgh.