I was accepted to UIUC Econ (second choice major after College of Business) and IU Kelley (with admission to ACE, a pre-honors program). Although I am from Illinois, I received a scholarship from IU, so I would be paying about the same at each school.
My goal is to eventually work in New York in some sort of business job, but I am conflicted in which school to choose. I know that UIUC is a more highly-regarded overall school than IU, although Kelley is a better program than UIUC Econ (for what I would like to do). If I were to go to UIUC, I would want to transfer into the College of Business, although I know there are certainly some risks involved with doing so.
Thus, I am debating between UIUC, which is a better overall school, and IU Kelley, which is a better business program.
First you should consider what you want to study. You need to assume that you will not get into the b-school at UIUC. Economics and finance are very different majors. Economics is a liberal arts course of study and gets very theoretical at the upper levels. In contrast if you go to an undergraduate business school you will take a business core with introductory classes in subjects such as accounting, finance, IT, marketing etc. and then you will major in one of those disciplines. I’m not saying that one path is better than the other, but they are different. I would take the time to look at the coursework (can be found online) for both a finance and an economics major and see if one path is preferable to you.
If you want to study busienss then the answer would be Kelley hands-down. You have a direct admit to the b-school and Kelley has a very strong reputation in the business world.