OK, I am rah, rah Michigan and one of the main people on the Michigan thread for about 3 years with a kid there now (engineering) and my wife is an Alumni…(Go Blue!!)
First you need to treat this like any business decision and look at the ROI. That alone should give you your decision. As I stated before my niece graduated from MSU in communications or similar field. (Full Ride and got accepted to Michigan also). No problem getting a job. One thing that no one is mentioning is that these are all major world class universities. All with great research and all with great alumni. All 3 will have major companies trying to get these graduates. I would just like to replace Purdue with OSU for obvious reasons. ?.
Thinking spending $120,000 more for just about any degree is basically crap, if you think you will be gaining something. There is no solid proof at all. Just garbage.
Plus your kid might want to go to graduate school, law school, get an MBA, now you have the funds.
Put that amount in an aggressive growth fund or the like (get advise first ?).
We started a Roth Ira for our kids. Small amount but it’s is growing over these last 4 years they have been in college.
If you got full rides kinda silly not to use them. Sure they won’t be Wolverines but they will get a degree and prosper.
Also… It is not entirely the school. At any of these schools if your kid doesn’t get off their butt, turn off the computer and get involved and make a difference on campus (which is where/when the opportunities happen), it really doesn’t matter where they go. It’s is NOT the name of the university that gets the jobs or opportunities. It’s the student that does!