I finished my MA at The New School last fall, and while it is an excellent place for your interests, the abysmal funding is not worth it (seeing as you declined their offer, you were smarter than I was). I can say that they are working hard to change their funding situation and make it more sustainable, accepting fewer students to give all more funding, they are not there yet.
I will be applying to several schools you mentioned (specifically U Oregon, Stony Brook, and Georgetown), and from speaking with my mentors I was turned on to many of the other schools mentioned in this thread.
I don't really have any schools to add, and I would agree with Phil519 that you should focus on funded MA programs (not to say that you shouldn't apply directly to PhD programs at all), I just wanted to add a degree of confirmation to the research you've done already and let you know that I'll be right there with you in the trenches when the Fall 2014 application cycle rolls around.
