Have you looked into Northwestern? If I was dead set on a school that offered full funding + stipend that would be it. Small, but critically rigorous, and close to chicago too so that would be a huge plus.
The Hartford MFA program is designed for documentary/photojournalism oriented photographers, since traditional academic programs would be inconvenient to those who have to travel a lot. Because of this a lot of the work that comes out of the school tends to be very same-y. The Mossless book that came out last year which consisted almost entirely of very similar film-based straight-forward documentary work had an advertisement for the Hartford MFA program. Look at that book and decide whether or not you want to align yourself with that mode of photography.
The two programs that I can think of off the top of my head for photojournalism are ICP's one-year photojournalism certificate program and Syracuse's Newhouse School.
http://www.icp.org/school/one-year-certificate/documentary-photography-and-photojournalism
http://newhouse.syr.edu/academics/degrees/masters/photography
They aren't necessarily MFA programs, but both are good, intensive forays into the journalism end of photography. Newhouse also has arguably one of the nicest buildings on Syracuse's campus. From what you're interested in it seems that a standard mfa fine art program wouldn't really help you.
I was in the same exact situation since I used all of my late-drop credits at Penn State, but it never was never a factor throughout the application process/interviews. Like seeingeyeduck said, they care about your work, first and foremost.
the International Center for Photography occasionally streams lectures from their school live. They had Richard Prince not too long ago.
http://lectures.icp.edu
Also, CCA has a fairly decent series of lecture recordings. Dawoud Bey's was phenomenal.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL585E7B188FC11848
I would choose Purchase personally. I was very close to applying to their MFA/MA program but saw somewhere that the person I wanted to study with (John Lehr) was going to be on leave in 2015. Even then, the rest of their faculty is top notch, and they seem to have a very strong concentration of artists & musicians studying there.
I guess it also depends on specifically which Canadian school you get into.
now to choose: RIT (large faculty & reputation) or Syracuse (funding & networking)
they're both good schools but so different at the same time. any advice?
Eva O'Leary
Eric Roman
Tim Davis
John Lehr
Elinor Carucci
Vincent Glielmi
Peter Baker
Its funny how many artists I've found just from researching schools.
I visited last fall with a friend. It was likely one of the most extensive retrospectives I've seen in a while. I was there an for hour and a half and didn't even get to see all of it. They even had his Paul McCarthy collaboration "Heidi" on display.