Big Red, I am glad you pulled the stats up because that is an important factor.
ERAU likes to tout that it gives out the most pilot slots after the AFA. However, what they didn't say was that they have the highest statistical chance of receiving a slot after the AFA. The size of the det needs to be taken into consideration, large dets can hurt as much as they can help.
I agree that you need to visit the campus, talk to the det., feel it out. I am typically not a visit the campus parent, but these are night and day campuses and locations. Tech is out there, the town exists because of Tech. ERAU is not that situation at all.
If snow bothers you, just imagine marching in it at O'dark thirty! You will hate Tech by the time tulips start blooming. If you hate the heat and humidity than you won't be a happy cadet at ERAU.
College is more than just the det., there are many cadets that leave their college because they did not look at the big picture, they only looked at the det. They will not be living, eating and breathing the corps 24/7. They will also be a traditional college student, only difference is when they enter as a freshman they know they will be employed as soon as they graduate.
Look at the campus, walk around and then approach which one you want.
My pet peeve is when people ask where do I have a better chance for flight school. The question should be which one will make me a better officer.
Unless you are psychic you can't know that you will get a pilot slot at either of these schools. Allow me to give some scenarios, and some real AFROTC facts right now.
1. Your child goes off to college. One weekend he is playing ultimate frisbee and breaks his leg that requires pins. This will cause him to get re-evaluated by DODMERB, and if the break is severe, they can say he is Pilot Qualified, but not ejection seat qual. That means fighters are out of the picture, and when the selection board meets they may say why give him a pilot slot, we already know he is limited in the planes he can fly.
2. He enters either school, but the engineering program is harder than he thought, add on his ROTC duty and Corp duties, his gpa is at 2.95 overall as he enters his spring semester soph yr. This yr., our DS is going to summer training, approximately 1/3 of the cadets at his det did not get it, his det is relatively large as seen from the national level. Everyone of those cadets had a gpa under 3.4. This might seem like nothing because it is only summer training. NOW realize that when they go to the selection board a 3.3 gpa is great, but the lack of summer training is sending a blaring signal to the board. It says the earlier board already decided that they didn't make the cut when compared to the others because he did not go to Summer Training.
3. AF is going through a RIF (Reduction In Forces), they have even announced that there will be no OTS for the immediate future. The way UPT works is the first people to get slots are the AFA cadets, then ROTC, then OTS. Currently, AFA cadets are waiting up to 9 mos for their school slot. That means the pipeline is slowing down.
I know I sound like Janie Raincloud, but I think it is important to not only weigh the universities, the det, and the overall program, but to understand you should never go this route with the only intention of becoming a pilot. The intention should be to become an Officer and serve in whatever capacity that the USAF needs me to serve in.
We were in your shoes 3 yrs ago. As parents we want to help them obtain their dream, but we were AD military and Bullet was flying the Strike Eagle as a ROTC commissioned officer, so we also knew the difficulty of getting there. We really impressed upon our DS that he needed to be realistic about his chances for UPT AND GETTING FIGHTERS. We wanted him to have an AF back-up plan if it didn't occur, because whether he got UPT or not he would be serving 5 yrs AD (active duty).
One last piece of advice, meet with the det. leadership, ask him/her to give their stats about UPT slots for the past several yrs. and what is his opinion of why the others didn't get a slot. Ten will get you twenty, it will be their EC's, gpas or need for a waiver. In our DS's det., they have a 95% acceptance rate for the past 5 yrs. IF the cadet carries a 3.2, went to summer training, had leadership positions within the det and also belonged to an Air Force fraternity, they got UPT. Your son can't go in thinking that all he has to do is maintain his gpa for the scholarship and show up at ROTC to get a slot. He needs to also be involved with ROTC.
Best of luck and wishes...GO AIR FORCE!
OBTW, if you can't visit Tech, just watch a Harry Potter movie, the campus looks like Hogwarts