<p>Thanks again to everyone for being so supportive and informative.</p>
<p>ucbalumnus: After some checking – you are probably right…as long as you keep a good course load and don’t change your major, 4 years looks like it can be done – especially with some help from my AP scores (5’s).</p>
<p>The Purdue scholarship is for 17K, so the total cost of attendance there for four years will probably end up being $95K-100K.</p>
<p>Zephyr15: We have had the money discussion. The 160K at GT will strain their budget but won’t be a hardship – probably no vacations or other non necessities for the years I’m in school, but no problems keeping up with everything else – especially if I can use some of my coop money to help pay off my portion.</p>
<p>The more I think about the job choice issue, the more important that issue becomes. </p>
<p>I know I’m only 18 and 4 years of college might change my point of view, but I think 4 years from now I’m going to value what type of work I’ll being doing more than how much they pay me to do it. Do you think I would be correct in assuming that that, no matter where I go to school my starting salary wouldn’t vary by more than 10-15%? Am I over or under estimating that difference? </p>
<p>If I am right, maybe this decision comes down to paying to have more choices of jobs at the end of 4 years. If I have a better chance of finding a job I love at the end of 4 years, does that make the $160K worth it?</p>
<p>On the other hand…clearly a GT graduate would have more opportunities than a UL graduate, but does that automatically make those opportunities more DIVERSE? And again….if I perform well and am assertive enough, can I make those opportunities happen at UL or do many of these more diverse organizations look at the school on the resume and stop there?</p>