<p>Have you run the net price calculators on the out-of-state public schools? The $$ is not likely to be there from need-based financial aid. Those particular schools are not known for lots of merit opportunities (they have some, but not a huge number of scholarships).</p>
<p>However, some out-of-state public schools have relatively low list prices (or automatic merit scholarships). Some of them are on the smaller side, like Truman State, UNC Asheville, New College of Florida, SUNY Geneseo. University of Minnesota - Morris has a low list price in or out of state.</p>
<p>Ithaca College has 6,000 undergrads, a school of music, a wide range of liberal arts majors and is pretty far from Minnesota. It’s also in a college town with Cornell, which may have appeal. Ithaca also has a surprisingly long list of famous alumni, especially in media - Bob Iger, Rod Serling, Ricki Lake, David Boreanaz, etc. Your daughter is very competitive for the range of merit scholarships they have: <a href=“Financial Aid Basics | Ithaca College”>Financial Aid Basics | Ithaca College;
<p>SUNY Purchase also has a relatively low OOS cost and might be appealing for someone with wide-ranging interests who wants to study music on the side, as they’re pretty well-known in the arts.</p>
<p>I also know this school violates a couple of your daughter’s requirements (It’s in Wisconsin and it’s pretty small - 1500 students), but Lawrence University is a small LAC with a music conservatory attached to it.</p>
<p>Emory has a pretty nice arts community, is in the population range but also offers merit scholarships. They are very very competitive, but your daughter has the kind of stats they look for in Woodruff Scholars. (One of my friends from HS was a Woodruff Scholar at Emory. He’s a doctor now!)</p>
<p>Duquesne has a school of music and they offer scholarships, although there is not much information on their page.</p>
<p>As one can see, there are other students out there who have the stats to get into top colleges, but finances dictate they have to look for options that are affordable. The Maria Devlin part of the story, shows what such students have to do.</p>
<p>I would out and out tell my child (and I do did ) what is affordable and that to go to a school, not only does the app have to be accepted and admiittance offered, but enough funds have to be offered as well. </p>
<p>Thanks @cptofthehouse. As I mentioned earlier, one of the reasons we can’t nail down an exact number for D is because I’m a freelancer, and my income fluctuates. As such, we are leaning to the conservative side, not wanting to overcommit to anything. </p>
<p>Perhaps you can tell her that lower than $X is definitely affordable even with low estimates of income, $X to $Y may be affordable but cannot be sure due to variable income, and higher than $Y is definitely unaffordable. That can help her assess colleges’ affordability (eliminating those with no chance of being cheaper than $Y, and realizing that those between $X and $Y also depend on family income variations).</p>
<p>^^^this is what we did with our kids. there were lots better schools into which they could have been accepted but… It’s a good lesson for them about life’s disappointments and unfairness and all that stuff. </p>
<p>I thought of a converse of the terms the schools use which is need blind versus need aware… as a parent, I would say I am not rich enough to be aid blind, I am aid aware. My S is applying to USC and Vandy as well as some full tuition NMSF schools hoping for a more aid aware merit based package than we’ll get from the Ivies and equivalents. He is not applying ED anywhere for that reason as well (actually, this is more because there is no one school that he loves, he loves many of them). He had verbalized a very pragmatic emotional approach to the process: “why fall in love with a school when it is a lottery ticket and you are likely to be rejected, just wait and see what you get into and fall in love with your choice then”. </p>