I will also have to put my vote in for purchasing SolidWorks. Not only is it very easy to use, but the manuals that ship with the program are excellent. I started using SW with SW'96 and from what I remember it only took about 2 weeks of spending 1 hour a day going through the tutorial to learn every-day functions of the program.
There is more support for SolidWorks out in the industry than there is for SolidEdge. To prove this to yourself, go on Google.com and do a search for both programs. Also, SolidWorks is expandable. I am not sure about SolidEdge. This means that the core program can be added to to add functionality. PhotoWorks, FeatureWorks, etc. Many secdond-source programs are also designed to run directly from within SW.
My company also uses Nastran and MoldFlow, both of which work perfectly with SolidWorks.