Factors be to considered in Finalizing a university for MS, PhD, MBA in US

Cost of Education and Reputation of the school: Most important factor in finalizing a university is cost of education and reputation. Filter the universities you got admission based on cost of education. Select the University with less cost of education for its reputation. Schools with less than $6000 for 9 credit hours (3 courses) are considered to be less expensive schools. Assistantships / Fee waivers / scholarships: Funding is important for most of the international students. If school’s tuition is high then look into assistantships or fee waivers available in the school. They will cover most of your Tuition. Don’t join in the schools which never offer funding for masters graduates. Top vs Average Universities: If your university is much reputed and you didn’t get any assistantship from the university and you got full funding from another average school, select the one with full funding with the condition that top school doesn’t have high salaried placement record. Sometimes your department may not have sufficient funds to provide assistantships. Check if other departments are providing funding for student outside their depts. Schools in Big Cities and Internships:  Decide a University with less tuition fee in Urban areas. These schools will have good internship opportunity records. Easy to get internships if you are a student of schools in urban area. Salary from your Internship would help you to pay the school fee. Dealing with less salaried majors: Don’t spend much money for non regular majors like environmental, civil, bio-tech, biomedical etc, pharmacy, chemistry etc. If you are a students from these majors particularly select schools only with less tuition and good funding. Forget about reputation of schools for these majors since you will not be paid much after graduation wherever you study.   Placement records: Look into the placement record of the school. Immediate placement after masters will give your money back in short time. Also keep eye on average salaries from placements for your major. Also see how many companies are interested to sponsor H1B visas to the graduates. Easy course work: Decide a school where grading of exams is easy. Duration of Study: New trend in selecting schools is to choose the one with one year masters degree. Duration of one and half year degree is also ok. Non thesis option:  With non thesis option in your masters you can complete degree in short time.  Thesis option involves doing some research in your field to get your degree, which may take long time. Selecting university for PhD in USA: For PhD guys mostly all universities offer funding. You just need to look into reputation and ranking of university. Choose School which has best research facilities in your research area. Selecting university for MBA in USA: More industry tie ups more placements in MBA schools. Ranking is most important in choosing MBA School. Your B-school reputation plays key role in getting good job. As you already know funding is also important if you want to get rid of the burden paying high school fees. Good luck in deciding your final destination…  :)