OTC. Speaking as someone who had done it.

It really just depends on how you feel about FOMO and can you handle not being a stereotypical college kid for awhile. Long term wise going to OTC for 2 years free is definitely going to be beneficial in the long run. Especially if financially you aren't just throwing around money freely. Some of the same professors that teach at MSU teach at OTC, so the quality of classes are practically the same. Plus the classes are smaller and you can get more one on one attention at OTC. Some of the pros of MSU is that you might get better connections early on in your college career, but that being said OTC has really expanded these past couple of years. Plus since MSU is your general dorm college you'll get more of a "actual" college experience than you would at OTC. MSU for sure gives you everything a college can give you right off the bat, but OTC can give you the same but it just takes longer.

If you’re eying the MST co-op program downtown go to OTC for pre-reqs and make your academic advisor Todd Vangorden.

OTC for prerequisites-someone who went to the MSU & S&T coop program. It’s the same class for cheaper. 100% I would do it that way if I had to do it again.

I studied math at MSU and work with math students at OTC. For calculus, you'll get pretty much exactly the same curriculum at either college. Sometimes it's even the same teachers. It's maybe better at OTC in some cases, because most of the teachers are just there to teach, whereas MSU professors are also doing research and publishing and so may treat teaching as a secondary responsibility. In my experience, at OTC, it will be easier to get personalized assistance like free online tutoring over the weekends or scheduling accommodations. MSU has more of an academic culture though, like students working together collaboratively outside of class hours and challenging each other with interesting ideas and projects. For physics, chemistry, and computer science, it's my experience that MSU has more challenging curriculum and more capable professors. Your future instructors at S&T probably have experience with students from both schools too, and it wouldn't be a bad idea to call them up and ask them directly for their opinions.

OTC, 100%. Even the cheaper costs aside, I found the classes smaller, the teachers better, and the college much more invested in your success.

At MSU I felt like the school could not GAF less about me. I would never attend there again.

If you are set on transferring then I would just do OTC to save the money.

I've taken classes at all 3 of those schools and will say that the ones I took at S&T were far better than anything I took at either OTC or MSU. If I was to do things over I would have just gone straight to S&T out of high school.

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As someone who has gone to and graduated from both, OTC typically is so much better for any general education class. Smaller class sizes, more focused attention from instructors.

OTC all the way... Plus it's less expensive to attend.