How hard to study mandarin in guangzhou?

Hi there, Im so confused about a question and wanted to ask u. I wanna go guangzhou to live and study rest of my life, but my chinese is not that good. Everyone I asked told me not to go there to study mandarin because of cantonese accent. But i wanna live and work there for a long time. So should i go northern parts to learn mandarin well and go back gz to live or should i make a fresh start and learn everything in gz? I would be appreciated if u also reccomend me a university to study mandarin in gz.