Go TO USC or Go To Penn State?

If you graduate with a degree from Penn State, or if you graduate with a degree from USC, either way people are going to say “good school”. Neither is Harvard or Stanford, but both are very good and respected.

Given you financial situation, you are going to need to take the cost of education into account. Going from 58k to 100k by working overtime is a LOT of overtime and a lot of work, but it is still not enough money to make 70,000 per year affordable.

I would be very surprised if any of UCLA, UC Berkeley, USCB, or USCD end up being affordable. Otherwise I would run the NPC on the rest of the schools on your list and see what it says.

I agree with @USCWolverine that you have good grades up to this point and that you are very likely to have a good future regardless of whether you attend USC, Penn State, Temple, or a different university.