I do agree it is best for parents to set forth any restrictions they have for college at the start of the search – including financial, geographic, and anything else. The parents do not sound like they set these limits from the very start of the search. But they did seem to put the geographic restriction in place reasonably early – they did not even visit schools out east. At this point I do think the best way to move forward is for the OP to respect the restrictions and look for colleges that fit within the parameters.
And if it is financially do-able I would try to start the engineering program from scratch at the 4 year college so the OP will have exactly the same base and depth of knowledge from the early level classes as other students in the program have. My D took a science class at a CC and felt it was way below the level taught in her 4 year college (of course that can depend on the CC and the college but that was her experience).