USC Molecular Biology PhD Program vs UCI Cellular and Molecular PhD Program

Hi,
I’m trying to decide between USC and UCI for grad school in the biological sciences. I’m interested in understanding disease mechanisms at the cellular level.

Here are the pros and cons for me:
USC Pros

  1. There’s a PI on the medical campus (but not in the department) I can 100% see myself doing my thesis with and he says I can rotate with him
  2. Its a private school and I’ve heard bad things about funding with the public UC system in California??
    USC Cons
  3. departmental program that only lets you rotate out of the department once
  4. research within the depatment seems to exclude a lot of medically relevant research (which I am interested in) because that’s more on the medical campus with PIBBS PhD program (I tried to get into this program but they rejected me- but one PI said it’s possible to transfer between these programs)
  5. lower stipend and higher living costs

UCI Pros

  1. Umbrella program that lets you rotate anywhere
  2. Stronger cellular research that is medically relevent
  3. Guaranteed student housing and better stipend
    UCI Cons
  4. I’m not as interested in these PI’s as the USC one, but they’re still really good
  5. Curious about this- are there any negative experiences with going to grad school at UCI?