Northwestern vs Miami of Ohio

I have a dilemma. I got accepted into both Northwestern University and Miami University in Ohio. Northwestern will cost me $50,000 a year, but I am in a Murphy scholars program which only 20 students from the engineering program get in and it gives us easy access to research and connections to faculty. I would study biomedical engineering and probably do a BS/MS program to get my masters in 4 or 5 years there. Miami Ohio is much cheaper(only have to pay for room and board basically) and I am in the honors program but I would be studying bioengineering instead of what I really want to do which is biomedical engineering. Another thing is that Northwestern is closer to a big city with a lot of connections to good company’s and a lot of prestige and alumni all over the country but Miami Ohio is in the middle of nowhere and is not known for engineering in any way. SO my question is, is NU worth the debt with the jobs I will get or should I go to the safe option? Any input is helpful, thanks in advance!

So you would personally be $200,000 in debt after graduating from NU?

How much debt?

@thatrunnerkid‌ ya basically. My parents would probably pay for half of it though

Did you apply for financial aid at NU? Because if you did you can usually appeal it to get a decent extra few thousand dollars off tuition or more. Don’t know if that drastically would affect your decision more. It sounds like you need to evaluate your potential paths for what career you want at NU vs Miami. If Miami Ohio can still help you get the type of job you want maybe choose that. If you can handle some debt NU has some more name recognition and is center ally located to help improve odds of opportunities of maybe local internships or something. Again will NU give you enough of a significant boost to be worth the extra cost now? It’s really hard for anyone on this forum to judge for you. If you think Miami Ohio is a good fit than take it, if it’s too unreasonable and off task for what you want to do choose NU. Also atmosphere wise the schools are very different, so you way want to visit both and get a feel for it before deciding.

Thanks for your help! I did apply for financial aid and I am planning on appealing but I dont really know what reason I can tell them. I have visited both schools and think I would enjoy going to both however I love NU and the type of people that go there.

Also now im getting even more indecisive and thinking about georgia tech as well so I have a lot of thinking to do :((