Ilya,
I graduated from both the Stat program and the MSMF at Rutgers and I can honestly say even with the higher tuition you get a lot more bang for your buck with the MSMF. You are not just paying for the employer connection; you are also getting access to extra classes that you can't take as a stat student and professors from industry who cost more to bring in then a typical professor. And this is still at a far cheaper rate than for most Math Finance programs.
From what I've seen, there seems to be no reason to even hire a professor from the industry. The
C++ course is quite basic, stochastic calculus can be taught by someone from outside, the regression course is taught by a statistics professor (
who thinks the whole financial industry is a can of sh*t as well, mind you)--I'm in that one (that said, the guy is just a really fun professor to have), and I have no clue who teaches the numerical methods.
Furthermore: two of the courses the MSMFs are enrolled in next semester are statistics (time series/statistical inference)--I'm enrolled in both of those, and the other two are the continuation of stochastic calculus and numerical methods.
The MSMFs have a third semester to take I have no idea what, so that may be their two-course kicker. But they spend the tuition for an entire extra semester for that.
As for the connections--I've seen the kinds of "connections" brought in, and I will tell you right now--Lehigh brought in some similar people. Simply put, however, it is my opinion that the MSMF programs are quite similar across the nation with the difference being the connections, connections, and connections.
Year of stochastic calc. Two
C++ courses. Some IEOR or statistics courses. Token derivatives/econometrics courses.
First of all, if a program doesn't fill out that checklist, odds are, it's not a phenomenal program. But if it does (and this shouldn't be overly difficult...if a school has an IEOR and finance dept., all it needs to do is teach the Stoch. Calc), then the difference plain and simply is connections--aka the quality of firms you bring in.
Now for the kinds of stat-arb high-liquidity I-don't-give-a-damn-about-exotic-financial-instruments trading that the top-tier quant funds do, I'd imagine that MSFE may not be the absolutely uncontested way to go, and a PhD may do you some good.
However, the issue is this:
A) How many firms know about these MSFE programs?
B) How many firms actually think that those with an MSFE are better candidates than those with an M.S. statistics/applied math/operations research?
C) How many firms would like the MS rather than a PhD?
D) How many firms of the above subset will you actually be able to attract to your campus, when NYU and Columbia are right in NYC itself?
That narrows it down quite a bit.
As for Rutgers' MSMF, considering that living expenses are about $4000 a semester and tuition is about $9000, spread across 3 semesters, that's around $40,000.
As someone coming from very humble economic circumstances, I wouldn't call that cheap.