New Mexico Tech or Colorado School of MInes

My son has been accepted to University of Illinois, Georgia Tech, Colorado School of Mines and New Mexico Tech. He has almost all his school expenses paid for by New Mexico Tech if he chooses this school for his undergrad. The other schools only cover about 20% of the costs with scholarships. He definitely has a plan already and wants to pursue Nuclear
Engineering to the PhD level. I am informed that NMT is known for the amount of research they are involved with and this is what graduate programs look for. ??? …Is it best for him to attend NMT and then pursue his PhD at Georgia Tech or Universtiy of Illinois since everything is pretty much paid for at NMT.

DAD

Congrats to your son! We live in Silicon Valley California. Here, New Mexico Tech is considered the Cal Poly of
New Mexico, but with a Junior College price!. Our son decided on this school for several two reasons. The quality of the education, the smaller class sizes and accessibility to instructors, the large scholarship he won(Cheaper than going to school here ) and finally, immediate participation in research projects. We visited all the UC’s in California- including UC Berkeley and UCLA, UC San Diego-. All told us that research opportunities are difficult to get unless you are a junior or senior. At New Mexico tech. research begins freshman year! This is huge and will provide him with a huge advantage when he returns home to apply to grad school. He plans to apply to UC Berkeley or UCLA for his masters.We call NMT a secret. The only disadvantage is if you like to be in a city and are very social this may be too isolated for you. Other than that…we predict that this school will be getting harder and harder to get into as people come to realize they can get a high quality, comparable quality degree similar to a much more expensive school. Also keep in mind on a application, its not where you go but where you end up and what you do!

Can you afford Georgia Tech without loans?