Drexel Vs University of Alabama

[jalexng118]

So I'm trying to decided between these two schools for my Phd in mathematics. Both have offered me around 20k per year and I keep going back and forth between them. They both have a few professors in the field I'm interested in so I think I'd probably be happy at either.

I think that I would much rather live in Philadelphia if I ignore the schools, but I'm worried about the price of that city. How livable is 20k in Philly? On the other hand I bet Tuscaloosa is not so bad on 20k, but I'm not really a small town kinda guy. How is the area around UoA?

And for a highly specific question if anyone with the knowledge can answer it, which school seems better for the study of operator algebras and C*-algebras? Is Drexel a good school for pure mathematics? A lot of what I was seeing online has started to make me think it is focused on engineering, computer science, etc. applications.