Career Question- State School vs. Big Private

[surftheiop]

I thought about reading this after i saw the post about law school.

Im currently a Freshman Chemical engineer at Cornell University. My career goals at this point are to work as an entry level engineer for a few years and at somepoint start working into management (this might mean getting MBA a few years down the road).

After completing almost the whole first semester i can tell without a doubt i will be below average in all my engineering classes meaning i will graduate with like a 2.4-2.7 GPA.

I have friends who are of similar intelligence who are juniors at Clemson university who are making 3.8-4.0s.

Financially (I know thats not the only / not the most important consideration) would it make more sense for me to transfer to a state school to save money on tution and get a much higher GPA?

It sorta seems like going back to the state school would be the obvious choice but at the same time i have to think that 5 years down the road nobody will care what my GPA is and they will either see Cornell or Clemson on my resume.

Any thoughts are welcome.