This is one of the first times posting on this forum so please feel free to ask questions if I did not state things clear enough or to correct if I did something wrong

Recently I graduated from high school and got informed that the school I wanted to study at was not able to allocate a place for me to study therefore I am left with my backup options for teritary study. Personally I believe that I have met all the requirements to enter the school but some how I just did not make it, perhaps that I did not perform as well in the interview. Well the thing is that this school I wanted to study has a very limited amount of place available meaning getting in is very competitive.
I live in Auckland, New Zealand. There are very few schools that offer product design in the region. As I can not independently support my self at this moment I would like to study as close from home as possible. Here in Auckland there are two choices as far I know, Auckland University of Technology and Unitec Institute of Technology. Prior high school graduation I applied for both schools and also others with completely different pathways to keep my options open. Among the others are University of Auckland and AUT as mentioned earlier where I applied for Bachelor of Science in Computer Science.
Many of my friends who are going to university are studying either engineering and commerce. They told me not to do design as the unemployment rate is quite high where as compared to computer science for instance. But I am determined that I would do well if I did design. In all honesty I can not imagine my self doing commerce, most likely that I would not enjoy it as much as design or as passionate about it. Perhaps ranking of the school does really matter when it comes to future employment?
The decision now is whether I should continue to study my preferred degree in the product design pathway in an average school or to change my pathway completely but study in a better school significantly higher in ranking(eg. University of Auckland). I would appreciate inputs from many people and many others who may have experienced a similar situation.
As a note, the school I wanted to study at is a university where as the other option is at a institute level not qualified for university status therefore not on rank. But the degree is virtually the same, Bachelor of Design in Product Design. From a small research I did apparently Unitec had their product design programme longer than AUT which only started offering the degree since 2008 but the head faculty previously worked in Unitec so I assume that Unitec probably has more experience in teaching. However equipment wise AUT definately has the lead, during visits to both schools. AUT has buildings that are much newer and that the studio spaces are significantly bigger with a wider range of equipment(prototyping machines, computers etc.).
For those who are really keen to help here are the websites of the two schools if that helps for input.
Unitec Institute of Technology
http://www.unitec.ac.nz/creative-indust ... design.cfm
Auckland University of Technology
http://www.aut.ac.nz/study-at-aut/study ... uct-design
Thank you,