[RedBaron]

First off, congratulations to your son for getting into those schools. I work with a quite a few RPI engineers. Everytime I mention RPI, their overall impression was that it is a lot of $$$ to go to school in a bad area. These are relatively recent graduates (the last 10 years or so).

What exactly does he want to do with nuclear engineering? I have a friend who works at the NRC and he went to U of Roch for a Chem E degree. Some schools offer Nuke Engineering minor degrees - It might be worth pairing a mech engr degree with a nuke minor.

I still think an acredited engineering degree is an acredited engineering degree. Regardless of where you go, you'll still have a few tenured professors who don't care about the students. State schools are a good bang for your buck. After that, if you really want to pick a niche area, go for your masters.