<p>go wherever he would feel better. i wouldn’t worry about grad school at this point. you can end up at med school, law school, etc, no matter what undergrad school you attend… provided that you do well and make the most of college, of course. No undergrad school is ever the “ticket” to getting into a grad school or a well paying job. CU is a good state school, but its still going to have tens of thousands of people there. if you are in an honors college, it may feel a little smaller, but then you have the issue of segregation of the smarties and non-smarties… i personally don’t feel that that is an appropriate way to have an effective learning environment or cohesive atmosphere at the overall university level. it’ll come down to personal preference.</p>
<p>i would argue that in the long run, having a top school (Ivy or a Close Ivy school like Stanford, WUSTL, Duke, etc) will serve you better than going to an honors program at a large state school. my experience at such a school has been great, even compared to friends who ended up at honors college at Univ of Illinois. even there, my friends simply have not received the same ability to do research, interact with faculty, have small class sizes, have a better advising system, or have better representation from companies recruiting on campus for jobs.</p>
<p>Have the kid apply to both places. Because of very large endowments even in today’s economy, top schools are quite generous with financial aid. Speaking from the UPenn perspective, but I know this is the case for Ivies and other Close Ivies as well, loans are essentially non existent, and have been for the past couple years. They might factor in a little to your financial aid package, but by and large, loans hardly represent any material amount of a typical financial aid package. Take a moment to look at individual school’s policies and programs on their websites.</p>