<prompt> Human: As a Computer ScienceComputational Biology major, I found it relatively easy to choose my state flagship, UT Austin, over some other prestigious schools.However, when it is worth it to spend money on an expensive, usually private, college? I assume it depends primarily on ones major, with businessfinancehumanities being some of those majors; its worth spending money on a degree in an industry which prides itself on the prestige of its employees e.g. banking, consulting, or ones where connections matter more than merit, at times.So rpersonalfinance, any successfailure stories or anecdotes of those who took on the debt of a top 20 university? Ive personally made my choice its almost idiotic to not go to UT for CS at in-state price, but I would like to hear from those not necessarily in tech and less meritocratic fields.TL;DR: When are the top tier colleges worth it from a purely financial perspective?  <response>: Maybe if the choice is Harvard Princeton or Yale, it might matter. Even the rest of the Ivy schools are about the same as other name schools and probably not worth the extra cost compared to good state schools. Of course some of these name schools have better tuition assistance programs than the state schools, so you need to compare what your actual cost would be.For some majors, for example Computer Science, then there are a few other top schools that might matter: MIT, Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, Berkeley. For other fields it might depend.Aside from the high status high credential fields like law, academia and finance, then the main thing employers want to see is a degree, they dont particularly care where from; then after a few years of experience, they wont even care about the degree. 