Check out the merit scholarship thread. http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/52133-schools-known-for-good-merit-aid.html#latest If your son can score well enough on the National Merit/PSAT test junior year there are a number of places he could get a full ride. My son was in the top 1% of his class had 800s on all his subject tests, and 1560/1600 on the SATs and still didn’t get into MIT. (Which was fine, he loved Carnegie Mellon.)