Basically anyone accepted to RPI gets offered a full ride at a state school so this is a common question and one I was faced with last year. I ultimately turned down a full ride at Stony as well as some other schools to come to RPI. The small classes and smaller program in computer engineering (or CS) is great and leaves you with many opportunities to get research positions or internship opportunities. I personally have an internship lined up for this summer with a bank in NYC doing software as well as a co-op for next spring at a different company. Another one of my friends will be working at Rolls Royce and I know quite a few that’ll be at CalTech or Google or other firms. It’s certainly not a guarantee, you need to work very hard but getting a degree from RPI will ultimately open more doors than a degree from Stony, given that you can afford it. It would be ridiculous to take out 120k in loans to attend RPI, but taking out 40k or 50k of government loans isn’t bad if you’re doing STEM or another in-demand field like economics or business. That’s only 4K or 5k a year for 10 years in repayments with interest and assuming you graduate you’ll be making plenty to afford that. Heck, you can even pay that with a dead end job living at home with your parents. Having Google, Bloomberg, General Electric, IBM, and all kinds of other giant companies/federal agencies (NSA, etc.) present hiring flocs of people at career fairs or through online apps is great and definitely a plus to attend RPI. Also the opportunities to network with important people from astronauts to Nobel prize winners to government officials who visit campus readily to give talks and speak to classes. You won’t find that as readily at Stony and it’ll definitely be more difficult, but you can still have the same opportunities if you work your brains out and apply to a bunch of different companies. It’s a personal decision at the end of the day regarding what you want. Visit the campuses and weigh your options.