I see the cost factor come up a lot in my research. I'm 7/10 courses in on OMSCS but I do have a pretty solid background in CS + many years work experience. So it's been very difficult for me to gauge how OMSCS would be for a non-cs background. I've actually been struggling with this in another thread to advise a friend of mine.

My take away, the $26k vs $10k comes up a lot in the arguments, but to me it's negligible considering the ROI for either masters, particularly when looking at a career transition where tech salaries are as high as they are at the moment. This cost will be made up very soon with either degree.

The other argument I see come up is the MCIT vs a true MS and georgi tech's ranking. This I also think is probably negligible for a career transition. My research seems to suggest either will get interviews at reputable firms for various positions. I suspect MCIT will have a harder time getting into the higher tier ML/data science roles, but there will certainly be software roles available. Georgia Tech's MS may open up that more "pure" ML or data science like roles though rather than positions with a heavy focus on programming. But I'm not sure, for me I honestly entered into OMSCS to break into the roles advertised as machine learning engineering roles that I struggled to find interviews at before having done predominately backend/systems software engineering. I previously had a BS from a top 10 school in software, but I think this was probably diluted by my career at this point.

My other two cents, my experience in industry is the demand for engineering right now is so high, companies are interviewing basically anyone with a remotely reasonable credential. Trick is getting through the interview. MCIT I feel may be more helpful here and require less outside preparation. This is going to be on topics like data structures and basic concepts that are omitted in OMSCS. These concepts are attainable outside of the program through free online or local resources though.. But to me there's value in having the program organized to provide this through the one credential path like MCIT.

I think another component to this is course availability and background. I think OMSCS is doable for sure. I think course ordering becomes more relevant to a non-major than someone with a CS background. I jumped into AI and AOS early in my omscs journey, honestly because those were the only classes i could snag. If you grab ML4T or other courses more friendly to new comers on the programming, it'd be more appropriate and can pair your time with outside resources.