Back to OP’s earlier posts:
A safety is a school that has the essential qualities of your match and reach schools in terms of location and/or atmosphere and/or political climate and/or weather and/or major offerings and/or degree structure and/or Greek life or absence thereof depending on what you want and/or distance from home ; that you’ve run the NPC on and seen that it’s within your allotted budget (so, for you, 15K); and that has about 40-50% acceptance rate as well as where your stats place you above to well above the top 25% threshold. So that’s what you’re looking for. Using matches and safeties for your current stats (if they’re likely to rise) will provide you with enough colleges likely to admit you, provided you look at fit and cost (ie., npc).
Vocabulary: I think that what you meant by “state school” was what people often call “directional”, ie., not flagship campuses but rather public universities meant to serve a region in the state rather than the top of the students throughout the state. What is called the “state” system (vs. UCs) ie CSU system in California is often called “directional” elsewhere because it has a direction in its name: Central Connecticut State University, Western Washington University, etc. “state university” isn’t necessarily used like that everywhere though - it’s a misnommer if you compare its CA meaning with its “national” meaning, since a “state” university typically means it’s a “public” university (as in “university for the people of the state”). For instance, Penn State is the flagship campus of the state of Pennsylvania (in that State their “UCs” are called Penn State Main Campus, University of Pittsburgh, and Temple University), and the equivalent to CSUs are “PASSHE schools” ie., “California University of Pennsylvania”, “Indiana University of Pennsylvania”, “Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania”…
Iowa State, Florida State are in this situation too - they’re “state” but aren’t “directional”, rather they’re among the top public universities in their state. Often, it’s the case for “land grant” institutions given university status in 1862 and the 1890s when their state was just being recognized.
In the South, the distinction can even be different, with “State” indicating sometimes that the university that used to be in majority for African Americans and may still be an HBCU, such as Alabama State vs. University of Alabama, Virginia State vs. University of Virginia.
In short, “a state university” has MANY meanings, don’t limit yourself because of the name. 