I recently made a similar decision between Cornell w/ no aid (looking at like 60-70kish total debt) and UMD Honors with no loans and chose UMD. My big factors for choosing UMD were the money, the proximity to DC (I have an interest in polisci), and the school of music. However, as the last 2 are probably irrelevant to you, you might want to consider Cornell more strongly. I loved the whole living situation at Cornell and Ithaca is IMO a superior college town. Also, obviously, Cornell has a superior academic community across the board (as opposed to the smaller Honors college). Also, I don’t know where you live but I’m assuming you’re OOS so this probably won’t be much of a factor for you, but I liked that Cornell was something different than the last 18 years of my life (I’m Instate).
How much debt would you be looking at if you attended Cornell?