Take the free one. Most students do that when they get a huge schoolship at peers or even aspirational peers. Cornell is excellent in Engineering and Applied Sciences (I don’t pay attention to USNews overall rank as these schools are very different and have a very different academic environment. A non-specialty rank is on lots of things that have nothing to do with academics once the student gets there. Cornell’s engineering program and many other STEM are known to be stronger and more intensive, but not 240k stronger. Also the weather + the traditional Ivy competition = “meh”. STEM is supposed to be hard but collaborative), but not so much that I would pay full price if a peer school offered me more money.