Hm. So, for the factors mentioned in your first paragraph, would that mean my best bet would be checking course offerings and the course requirements for a CS major with a focus on finding that they offer a wide variety of CS courses for different concepts? Regarding the second paragraph, I might take some philosophy courses if I could fit them, maybe some public policy style courses.
I received some more info from my non-custodial parent. Their spouse won’t reveal an exact income, but they are a seasoned airline pilot at Delta. That means an annual salary somewhere between 100k - 180k depending on experience and whether they are a captain or a pilot. Large range. They have seven dependent children. I’m working on net cost calculations for the private schools, but their recommendations for how to get an accurate output from the College Board’s Net Price calculator seem rather varied. Macalester, for example, receives the income of the non-custodial parent’s spouse through the CSS non-custodial parent form but does not include that step-parent’s income in aid calculations, but they do include half the total assets of the non-custodial parent’s family. I’m working on calling every college I’m interested in so that I can work out how they handle my situation as well.
U of M: 0 net cost w/ about 14k in loans (student and parent loans) and 3k in work study. The rest is grant money. Thought that 14k in loans would accumulate quickly over a four year period reaching 56k. I assume this calculation applies to most in-state publics since they all use the FAFSA calculation. Someone tell me if this is wrong. They also have some merit aid that all applicants are considered for automatically.
Privates: Not sure yet.