<prompt> Human: I guess I should start with a little background information. I am currently 17, and entering my senior year of highschool. I dont have a job, and my parents have no savings. I live with just my father, on his 40k a year salary. However, I guess I am well above average intelligence. I have worked hard every year during school, and Ive maintained a 4.0 gpa since fourth grade. I have a 35 composite on the ACT, and I havent failed an AP exam. I hope not to come across as arrogant, but I have worked hard for all of these things and I am very proud of them. I am very ambitious, and I want to be proud of what I have done when I get older. I believe I can get accepted into some great universities, but I know they will be expensive. A lot of decent schools in my state will give me a full ride with my test scores alone. Its just, I want to go somewhere great. I know that the good schools are expensive, but are they really worth it? I will have to take out loans to pay for everything. I doubt I will change my mind, but Id like to know what I am getting in to. Assistant: A full ride is hard to pass up - if you google for some statistics on tuition vs mid-career salary at publicprivateelite institutions, youll have a better idea of what your money is buying. Without knowing what state youre in, its hard to give you suggestions, since state universities in TXCA are a completely different caliber than say WYND.Human: I really dont mind saying. I honestly should have just added it before. Im in Kentucky. Unfortunately, the universities here are not very good.  <response>: I am living in Kentucky, attending a state university, can confirm that they can be god awful...Despite my parents telling me I should choose an inexpensive Kentucky college, I chose to attend a pretty expensive university in Ohio and found the debt wasnt worth it for what I was studying English and education. Even with a large scholarship, it was fucking expensive. Also, all the professors and employees such as in the financial aid office and even some of the students were snooty and unfriendly. So, I switched to a school in Kentucky and found their program isnt too terrible. I was skeptical about switching to this KY school because I had heard people had so many issue with it: wayyy too many students, financial aid is fucking useless, parking sucks dick since its a commuter school, theres favoritism, and some other random things shit gets lost or mixed up by people in the bursar and registrar offices all the time it seems... But I didnt find any of these issues to be that big of a problem. The professors in my department are AMAZING. It seems most professor through the university not just in my own department of English are pretty good. However, there are some, mostly those who are adjuncts teaching lower level courses or core university courses, are god awful and just dont give a shit. Also, a lot of the students are...well...idiots, and I honestly have no clue how they made it to college one girl in my class thought Australia is in Europe.... But overall Im happy with my decision to switch from a prestigious out of state school to a not-so-prestigious in state school. You should base your decision partly on what you plan on doing in the future. If you want a career that wont make a whole ton of money, you obviously dont want a lot of debt... Thats one of the reasons why I transferred to my local Kentucky school. The Ohio school cost 30,000 a year I, fortunately, after scholarships only had to pay 10,000. However, I was originally going to school for teaching which only makes 30k a year!TL;DR: The Kentucky schools are hit or miss. People either love them or hate them and it also depends on the school... I know people from every big KY school, so I can tell you what people have said about them. Think about your expected salary after college when picking the college...Edit: Remember that if you stay in Kentucky, youll get KEEs money if youre eligible... Free money right off the bat just for staying within the state! Thats always a plus. And one Kentucky college I would recommend looking into is Murray State. My husband absolutely loved it there. Its not shitty like other state colleges. 