<p>@mom2collegekids:</p>
<p>And for engineering, UIUC is actually more prestigious/will give you more opportunities than WashU!</p>
<p>To the OP: unless you want the LAC experience, chances are good that you won’t be able to do better than UIUC for the same price at another research university (unless fin aid makes the price the same) in STEM.
I understand the desire to not go to the big state U that everyone in HS goes to and to go away farther from home, but the list of research universities that are better than UIUC in STEM isn’t that long, and most of them don’t offer merit aid; only fin aid. Duke has some full-tuition scholarships that are extremely hard to get. JHU has a tiny number of full-tuition scholarships. Rice also gives merit aid.<br>
WashU, Vandy, & Emory offer merit aid, but I actually don’t consider those schools to be as good as UIUC in engineering/STEM reputation/opportunities.
I would consider Case Western to be equivalent to UIUC in engineering & sciences (worse in CS) if the cost is the same.</p>
<p>USC has merit scholarships and may be considered on the same level as UIUC, but at least they have the differentiator of a very strong alumni network.</p>
<p>A bunch of small engineering schools on the East Coast (WPI, RPI, Stevens, Cooper Union, Olin) are cheap enough (with merit or automatic scholarships) and are much smaller. Webb is free.</p>