Thanks to everyone who has responded so far. Currently, I think I want to do public sector work, which would mean that a program like Minnesota, Wisconsin, or Washington would make the most sense. However, I am somewhat worried that the reputation of a school like CMU allows me to change my mind about my goals while some of the other schools may restrict my options directly out of grad school.
Another worry I had was that I had the impression that GPPI and CMU were far more rigorous than the other schools; however, posts here and visit days have led me to believe that anyone with a quantitative background like I have will be bored in the standard econ and quant classes in any of these programs and that if I want the type of rigor that I am capable of doing, I will basically be looking at taking classes in other departments. ( I really don't mean this to sound arrogant. But from everything I've seen, the econ courses are pretty much all somewhere between intro and intermediate level econ taught with only basic pre-calc and calculus assumed.)
Aside from my interest in local and state government, I have also been thinking about technology policy; which would make CMU's program great. However, after looking at the program, I'm not convinced that the courses offered in tech would actually add to my knowledge of tech related issues. I paid my way through college working in IT and fairly basic classes in databases and programming wouldn't be that informative. However, CMU is known for technology. So, in terms of getting a job in that sector, I would get a significant leg up.
At the end of the day, I don't know if I can really justify the amount of debt I would have to take on to go to CMU or GPPI when I can be making money at a few of these other schools. My experience in undergrad has been that it is worth it to go to the less expensive school if you know you can work hard and produce impressive work.
Any further comments are still appreciated. I just figured I would type my current thought process up in case it could help anyone else making a similar decision.
