<p>When you are young money doesn’t seem like an issue because your parent’s pay your bills and high school seems like it is for free. Well it isn’t. Property tax pays for that. My property tax is $10,000 a year. You also think college will guarantee an affluent future. Well it won’t. All such promises are greatly exaggerated. I went to all sorts of “elite” schools and have all sorts of college friends who struggled to make a living. Thus my suggestion is to take the money and make school as cheap as possible. All of those schools are well regarded. UNC has school spirit if that’s so important to you. Is Duke’s school spirit worth the price of a house? No way, unless you are a millionaire right now. If you want engineering, you should go to a school with an engineering program. However, you can get a BS in computer science without getting a BSE in computer engineering. You want to be a programmer or you want to design hardware? Wash U has engineering. Wash U. is an elite school if that’s important to you - and the elite nature of a school is way overrated on this website. If it helps you, I have a friend who passed up Harvard to go to Wash U on scholarship. She’s an MD/PhD now. Her MD/PhD was also full ride. Not paying for college. Shows you how really smart she is.</p>