Turned down UChicago 2/3 tuition for Duke. Worth it?

[xan]

Got into a number of MA programs this fall, including Sociocultural Anthro at Columbia, the New School & Cambridge, World Cultures PhD at UCLA, MAPSS at UChicago, and East Asian Studies at Duke. All of these gave me some level of funding except for Duke, as I transferred into their East Asian program really late from another Duke MA program.

Cambridge offered me 10k GBP, UChicago offered me 2/3 tuition. I turned them down. For Duke.

I visited the schools, maintained contact with a couple professors at Duke who were quite supportive, and thought long and hard through every aspect of my future grad education, and Duke was still my dream school mainly due to its big name in Western Marxism traditions. Is this an incomprehensibly stupid choice? 

Just notified UChicago and Duke about my decision (I asked for extended deadline to reply to my offers), but I feel stupid and can't stop thinking about all the money I turned down =(

Any thoughts..?

Edited June 2, 2016 by xan

[RCtheSS]

Don't feel stupid for going with your decision. You did your research, compared program fit, faculty and resources. You have made a decision that you feel is the best thing for your and your future studies/career. 

I turned out a full ride at one program for another that offered barely 25% tuition coverage. No regrets!

[Quickmick]

If you have already notified them, I am not sure what good opinions will do now. In any case, it is hard to say without knowing your particular situation. Do you have a trust fund? Kind uncle named Bill Gates? If money is no object then the money doesn't matter. For me, I won't go without funding but that is largely a product of where I am in life (I turned down significant funding for law school as I didn't want to pay the remainder) and the simple math of the economics in terms of time horizon.