What are the Best Value for Money Universities for STEM Masters in the US?

We’ve spoken about some best STEM Universities in the USA before. In this article, we discuss what makes a college value for money, and which affordable universities offer the best placement rates.

Does the university provide you with the right resources for student placement? That’s the question we explore in this writeup followed by a list of top 10 universities in the US, with tuition fee under INR 40 lakhs for MS courses, as per their placement ranks.

Why Should you Consider Placement Cell and Rate While Choosing Colleges to Study STEM in the USA?

When you decide the worth of any university, you look at its payback value. Why? Because going to college abroad has a high financial cost. Most students take a loan to pay for tuition which requires timely repayment. How does a student ensure that the loan repayment is done within a set time? By getting decent employment after graduating.

One way of finding a good job with a healthy remuneration is getting in touch with the career services cell of a college. With the help they give, a student can kick-start their career on the right path.

Read more about: Top STEM Masters Courses for Studying Abroad

How Do You Judge a College’s Worth as Per its Placement?

Look for:

1. How many students are employed after degree completion?
2. How well were they placed after finishing the master’s course?
3. Will the job you get after finishing MS save you more in comparison to the job you had before?

To find out the first and the second points, you can make use of LinkedIn and compile an analysis of your target universities alumni. Of course, we, at GyanDhan, specialize in employability analysis. You can check our proprietary prediction by using our University Compare tool, which among other things, shows employability and future income numbers, customised for your profile. For the third question, you can use tools like our future earnings estimator.

Placement cells play a key role in enhancing your employability. So, we take a brief segway to discuss them here. 

What Does a Good Placement Cell do?

Unlike India, where colleges offer on-campus placement, US schools rarely have them. In lieu of it, they have a career centre sometimes known as a placement cell or a student career service.
 A career service centre is usually a group of experts that helps students with:

• Job fairs/Career fairs
• Writing a resume and cover letter.
• Interview preparation – what to wear, what questions to prepare, etc.
• Decision making – choosing between a professional job or further studies.
• Networking – connecting fresh graduates with working professionals and alumni in the concerned fields.

Essentially, a placement cell gives you the vital tools needed to find a suitable job.

How Can an International Student Leverage the Placement Cell?

As it has been mentioned above, a placement cell only provides the tools and a platform to find a suitable job; landing employment is a task which the student has to undertake alone.
Nevertheless, they can take these steps to boost their career prospects and ensure that they get placed well:

• Maintain a good CGPA
• Attend all recruitment drives
• Networking with people, especially alums - both online and offline
• Participate in college activities or even volunteer for different roles
• Utilize your mentors, teachers, peers, and other technological resources to hunt for a job
• Get an estimate of the company’s frequency distribution from previous batches of the course. It will give you a generic idea of how many students one firm hired.
• Visa regulations and work permits bind an Indian student.
  International students should leverage the placement cell to learn which companies hire international graduates along with:
  • The profiles they offer.
  • The average salary package offered.
  • The promotion and growth curve, if a student accepts the job.
• Find out what companies look for in a candidate when hiring. Knowing what they value, you can add relevant skills and projects to boost your resume. 

What are the Top 10 Universities in the US for STEM Master’s According to Placement Rank Under 40 Lakhs?

Now let’s have a look at the top 10 universities in the US for STEM Master’s which are the best value for money as per their placement metrics. Below, we list down universities, with 2-year tuition fees less than INR 40 lakhs, by their placement rates. Getting admission into these colleges means that not only do you set your way for bright career prospects and higher ROI (Return on Investment) but also ensures that you reap all these benefits at a reasonable cost.
 

Source: The aforementioned data has been collated by GyanDhan’s in-house data sciences team. 
*We define employability as the probability of landing a full-time job within 1 year of graduation

We hope this information helps you make a more informed choice about your target university. For any questions, please feel free to comment below or write to us at contact@gyandhan.com