IMHO, if your partner can't look at his page on your site and see how completely obvious it is that he should stay in SF... he might as well move to Indiana, because your product is useless. ;)

I can't figure out whether or not I can draw all over that decisionero page without ruining it, so let me riff on it here:

San Francisco is a city that fits me, where the possibility of wonderful new connection is everywhere.

Then perhaps you should... live there? :)

San Francisco might be a poor place for me to study for a degree: all that possibility for connection is also possibility for distraction.

Yes! Thank god! You know why I'm here on news.yc in the first place? Because Philip Greenspun distracted me from grad school.

The entire point of grad school is the distractions. I learned this far too late, but at least I learned it.

Indiana's comp sci department has said that they cannot fund me for 2008-9...

Warning sign.

The professor at Indiana who I like is right now getting into the line of research that I want to pursue. Virtually everyone else to whom I've told this research idea to has said it's a terrible idea and can't work. This fellow "gets it". This year is probably the best time to get started on it, just as he is ramping up

Big warning sign.

If you want to be a professor you need two things as you come out of grad school: A stellar recommendation letter from someone well established in the field [1], and the ability to get your grants funded. Working for a relatively new guy is dangerous, as is settling for a guy at a less-than-top-tier school -- his recommendations aren't worth as much. Going to work on a problem that most other profs think is a waste of time is incredibly foolish, because those other profs are the ones who will be reviewing your grant proposals and interviewing you for your next academic job. If everyone tells you up front that your idea won't work, and it doesn't (which is the most likely possibility), you won't exactly look like a genius. Even if your idea does work, many of those people won't get it. Or they might just refuse to listen to you out of spite. (If you think that can't happen because it would just be too petty and unfair, you know nothing about academia. ;)

I think professorship is really what I'm made for, and Indiana looks like the best path for that. That's the one place where I've met a professor who seems on my wavelength...

Wait -- you think being a prof is a good idea despite the fact that only one prof in the world seems to be on your wavelength?

Being a prof is entirely about making other profs happy so that they'll vote to give you funding. If you don't enjoy playing political games with other professors, you won't enjoy being a professor.

A master's degree from SFSU would likely lead straight to a Ph.D. from Berkeley or Stanford. And a Ph.D. from Berkeley or Stanford are better tickets to professorship at a research university than a Ph.D. from Indiana.

Amen. This is not only 100% correct, it's the most important factor by an order of magnitude.

If you seriously want to be a prof, never settle for a second-tier school so long as there are top-tier schools in the running. Berkeley or Stanford profs have better reputations, better connections, and better locations. Remember: academic hiring is more subjective than objective. It's as much about marketing, connections, and politics as it is about research talent and results, even if you're Knuth.

[1] Actually, you need three recommendation letters. Yet another argument for attending a university with at least three well-respected, well-known faculty members that you can interact with... and for studying a topic that these three people will understand and respect.