@stako555, I don’t know anything about West Chester’s STEM programs, but my son (who’s on full scholarship at Alabama and was accepted to Penn State UP with zero merit $), was not terribly impressed with West Chester’s offerings or the overall feel on the campus. That doesn’t mean it isn’t good for computer science–I just don’t know one way or the other.
I’m guessing Penn State offered your daughter that money for Brandywine because they have such a high volume of kids trying to get into UP and they want strong students like her at their satellite campuses. You’ll likely never know if they would have offered her that merit money for the main campus. They don’t seem to offer many incentives to engineering students at UP since they don’t lack students dying to go there.
The thing with saving money for “graduate school” is that unless you’re talking about professional school (med, vet, dental, law, business, etc.), graduate school in STEM fields should include a stipend to cover tuition if the school is worth attending.
If I were you, I’d compare the two schools very closely to see how the academic offerings compare. How hard is it for someone to transfer to PSU-UP in engineering from WCU after two years? See if you can find that out. Maybe she can have the best of both worlds!