Congratulations! I would go with the "okay" school where you don't have to go into debt; once you graduate, what school you went to won't really matter, either in the work market (unless you are applying to somewhere that only hires Harvard Business School grads or something :-) or to you very much; I still remember when I graduated high school, graduation day and was trying to figure out how I would consider those "the best years of my life" :-) What we imagine something to be like before often isn't what it actually is like in our experience. With no debt, things might go lots easier in your "after" life with money, etc.