See first post - parents will pay $60k for an elite school and the student clearly prefers Bama but parents presumably would pay UTK. The student believes if they get elite, loans will have to make up the rest and doesn’t want that.
“For me, the biggest reason for UTK is my parents: they would rather me go to UTK than Bama due to ranking,”
Hopefully the parents will direct some of the save to med school !!