<p>I didn’t read all of these posts, so this may be redundant, but I saw that you didn’t want to pay $35K a year for Rutgers?
I was in a similar situation with another school that I adored. But what you <em>really</em> don’t want is to graduate from undergrad with a lot of debt, because you are going to have more to worry about when you go for Grad and PhD. I suggest knocking out your undergraduate in the most cost-effective manner (without sacrificing a good education) so that you can have more wiggle room with tuition on the graduate university you attend. UGA is a great school with the CURO research program that you can do even as a freshman. It also has a lot of connections, especially in Georgia.</p>