Two suggestions:
1- Figure out the difference for your family between a 3 hour car drive, vs. a potentially longer trip but one which your D does by herself (public transportation, ride share, shuttle bus). It’s one thing for a parent to have a long day of a drive up and a drive back. But if there is convenient and cheap transportation which doesn’t involve the parent, your options increase significantly. I live in New England and travel for work- taking Amtrak to DC is a piece of cake (no matter how long it takes- the trains run frequently, are clean and quiet, I read and get work done) vs. driving to a meeting which is a few hours closer but where I have no options other than driving is actually painful.
2- Sit down with a few years worth of your financial history. Seriously. Recurring bills, credit card and bank statements, tax returns. You can’t believe the number of families who think “we’d like a little merit aid” only to discover come April that “a little merit aid” means they need to pay exactly TWICE what they can actually afford to pay. And then the panic, scramble, etc. The NPC’s are important- what a college THINKS you can afford, and your D’s stats and how likely she can get merit aid is important- every dollar helps- but the really and truly important number comes from you.
We have X from savings- so divide that by four. We can divert Y from our current income (let’s cut out the summer vacation and just stay home, we never watch tv anymore so why do we pay so much for cable?) We are comfortable with our D borrowing the federal limit per year. OK, that’s your budget. Trust me- the financial aid fairy is NOT about to visit your house. So all those local scholarships you read about in the paper? They have fancy names but they are worth $500 for books, and $1500 for lab fees and are only good for the first year. Is it great to win those? of course. Are they going to make a college which you cannot afford suddenly affordable? No.
Once you have that number come back. Having us recommend a 70K college which is going to slash $10K off the sticker price when you need your net costs to be 35K is a waste of time. Tell us what you can afford.
your D sounds great btw.