@ucbalumnus i would say its somewhere in between – in the words of my mom, if it’s a place i’d really want to go, “i can make it work”. Being in-state at berkeley, i would graduate debt-free and would be able to afford grad school etc. at the same time, i think I would do better at Vassar – but is that worth 30k a year? currently emailing vassar financial aid and seeing if there’s anything i can do.