@ybot2019 I just looked at the in-statecosts for both in order to understand the real budget differences. It looks like UM will avg out to around $31,000/yr and CMU to around $11,000.
In our family, this would not even be a question for discussion. We as parents refuse to take out loans or co-sign for loans. UM would fall into the unaffordable range. Our kids have no option but to stay in that current-for-you CMU cost range bc it is all they can afford. (Our EFC is more around the UM range.)
Fwiw, our kids have all attended non-top ranked schools on scholarship and have been able to pursue their post-college career goals without issue. Talk to the depts at CMU and see what his opportunities will be like on campus and where/what their students are doing post-graduation. That may reveal a lot. One of my ds’s and I met with a couple of depts at higher ranked schools than where he ultimately attended and he crossed those schools off his list without hesitation. One dept head told him that their focus for research was on their grad students and that UGs typically worked for grad students if they were able to get a research position. The other school’s UG advisor and dept head could not answer his question about where their students went after graduating. They looked at each other for help with blank stares. They also dismissed his desire for UG research opportunities. That ds ended up at a lower ranked school, but he had direct-with-professor UG research starting freshman yr and had great profs as mentors in the dept. That dept cared about their UGs. He ended up at a top grad school and one of his friends from the dept is now at Harvard for med school. Ranking isn’t everything.