I am applying to the following schools: NYU, Brown, USC, UW, WSU, and my state schools as safeties. My question is would it be better in the long run to go to a school such as WSU (Honors College) with little to no debt or to go to a school like NYU with very little financial aide? And would choosing the cheaper option hurt me in terms of getting into a reputable graduate school? For reference my GPA (weighted) is 4.56, my SAT super score is 1500, I graduated 1 year early, have taken 6 AP course, and I am currently enrolled in the pre-university, one-year, program at Beijing University to increase my Chinese language skill. Furthermore I plan to go into the business field with a major in probably finance or economics.
It would not hurt you to graduate with little to no debt with good grades from WSU. Not at all. You would find excellent graduate school opportunities.
I personally do not see an advantage of NYU over WSU–not one that’s worth tens of thousands of dollars. NYU while a great school in many ways, to my mind is no better (and no worse) than a good flagship state school. NYU is large, spread out, big lectures, great profs and excellent research – just like a very good, large state flagship. NYU does not have a football team to bring the school together in spirit and it doesn’t have a central gathering space–no centralized defined campus, no big arena for sports or commencement, that sort of thing, or for just hanging out and throwing a frisby. For some that means that there’s little centralized community. NYU is located in downtown NYC and offers the arts and other amazing opportunities that way, but if that’s your draw, then you can find that in a different way. For example: not going into debt during college and using your funds to move to NYC later, for work.
Your hard work in any other school (practically) will give you the advantages you need to get into a good grad school. Grades, research or work, plus GRE/LSAT/MCAT etc will get you into grad school, generally. Not the NYU name.
Go for no debt! New York will still be there.
I third what everyone else says- go to WSU! Not only would you not have to worry about debt, but the “honors” distinction might help you in the long term more than a standard NYU degree.
IMO it depends on what your family can afford and how much debt you will end up with. If you can graduate from a program like Stern with a minimal amount of debt then it may be worth doing – but I would not take on a great deal of undergraduate student debt.