Lots of great suggestions so far. If you settle on aero, two more safeties that are very strong in aero are Iowa State and U Houston, so take a look and compare those to the others in your list.
Iowa state is rolling admission and their own app is easy and opens 7/1 (this Friday!). You could have an acceptance in hand before you start senior year. OOS COA is around $40k for 2022/2023, and you will get merit there too.
Iowa state has a great Rocket Club too! The Spaceport America Cup just happened in New Mexico with 150 teams from all over the US and the world. Iowa State was there so was UCLA, Berkeley and Riverside and so many other great teams.
Thanks for the suggestions! Iām planning on getting a masterās in aero but what if I were to get my bachelorās in mechanical? It seems like that would increase the number of jobs available to me. Is this a good idea or would it be better to stick with the bachelorās in aero too?
I think both work. Mechanical is more practical but as someone earlier said, just because your degree is in aero doesnāt mean you have to be in aero.
I work for a global 100 company. My former sales vp was an aero engineer major.
The skills will travel well.
At some you can major in one and minor in the other as wellā¦get a little focus. or you can major in meche -but hope to get an aerospace internship - happens every day.
Speaking as an aeroā¦ I would have hated majoring in any engineering other than Aero. If I didnāt do Aero I think I would have majored in something completely different. Wouldnāt touch electrical engineering and mechanical was 
I can also say it works both ways, just like you can get an aero degree and do something else, there are a ton of people around here at work who donāt have aero degrees and have been working with me for years in aero.
Not sure of the cost these days, but you might want to look at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical U. Canāt get more aero than that. They are private, so they will cost more, but may be opportunities for merit or need based aid. Stats wise, I think you would have no problem.
One other thing I would ask is your aero focus: do you want to work with airplanes or rockets? Because if space and rockets are your love, you might want to look closely at each program. Most programs focus on aircraft. Still good and important but you might get bored or disappointed. Pretty sure CU Boulder and School of Mines both have opportunities to focus at least some of your studies on space, rockets and things like that. Although my degrees were heavily 
I am all about 
We took a tour of CU Boulder aerospace engineering complex and were blown away. Amazing facilities and resources and lots of focus on space stuff.
My son got 50% merit at both ERAU in Daytona and Florida Tech in Melbourne.
What about Wright State University, I think they are known for aerospace engineering and has scholarships if you meet a certain GPA. How do I know about it. One of the guys I worked with graduate from this university, he went here free.
Look at Wichita too. For aero. Low cost. Well known. And UAH in Rocket City
CU-Boulder does have excellent aerospace resources, but it is out of OPās stated budget of 40k/yr. Current tuition for oos engineering students is 61k/yr. I believe OP has revised his/her list based on the suggestions in this thread.
Public universities - UC Berkeley, Georgia Tech, University of Michigan, Virginia Tech, Purdue and Illinois have fantastic engineering programs.
Air Force Academy? Maybe Auburn or Alabama Huntsville?
Air Force Academy is a superb option for a kid who wants to serve in the military. Period full stop. It is a grueling experience-- with a significant service requirement once you graduate- for a kid who is just looking to get an engineering degree and loves aviation.
But that assumes that CU Boulder gives no merit aid and the student would qualify for no financial aid. A quick look at CUās web site shows that they do offer merit scholarships, I am sure they must offer financial aid, and it looks like there is a path for in-state tuition exception for OOS residents (dont know how, I just know it invalidates you for one of the scholarships). So, point being no school should be eliminated out of hand because it is a little or a lot out of the price range, if there is a realistic possibility of scholarships and aid.
The top merit scholarship at CU-Boulder is 15k/yr and it is reserved for oos students who are in the top 1-3% of the non-resident admitted class. While OP has great stats, CU-Boulder gets a lot of very competitive applicants. And, CU-Boulder makes it very difficult to get in-state tuition. Generally, any dependent student under 23-years-old will not qualify for in-state tuition.
I think OP would do well to focus on some of the other excellent, affordable colleges that have been mentioned in this thread.
Again, you are still assuming he will not qualify for any financial aid, which is not known to us. It is ok to apply to a financial reach school as long as you accept that if you are accepted that if they donāt offer a combination of merit and need based aid to get you to where you need to be, you will not be able to attend. But fine, Iāll concede Boulder is a stretch without a bunch of things aligning. What is known however is that in the original list, CU Boulder is one of the schools most known for Aero (along with several others). There are a lot of the top schools for Aerospace (in no particular order) missing from this list (Rensselaer, Va Tech, Michigan, UT Austin, Texas A&M, Ga Tech, the Ohio, NCSU, for example). But even though most of them are public, they are OOS and most are going to end up being higher cost. Also, still unknown whether the OP is looking more for a career in the space aspect of Aerospace or the Air aspect of aerospace. Because that could change the list some. I would also add University of Kansas - it has always had a very strong Aerospace program - if you want to live in the middle of nowhere (Kansas). But to the best of my knowledge, they are strong aircraft/aviation-based aerospace program. A quick look at their web site shows that they do now have a couple of Space Vehicle Design courses, so I assume they give seniors the option for space vehicle design 1 & 2 vs aircraft design 1 & 2 - but other than that, I do not know how much other opportunity they have in the realm of classes, research and projects that are space based. But research on the website and contacting the department could answer those questions. And it should fall below the $40,000 mark even in the most expensive dorm rooms - before GPA based merit scholarships. (KU Distinction Award - GPA between 3.84 and 3.94 - $14,000/yr OOS)
Not getting need-based aid from OOS publics is a solid assumption, with only a handful of exceptions.
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