I think it makes sense that you are getting the same NPC results from many colleges, or at least that the low figure number of $20k per student comes up again and again. If your EPC is about that, the schools are all aiming for that as the minimum they’d like you to pay. They want you to pay that $20k and are hoping you’ll come to accept it. Many do, figuring that if the government says that’s the cost the family can afford, and the schools all say about the same thing, and the loans are available, well, $20k must be the number.
I understand the desire to stay in the NE, to not be too far from home, but that’s really going to limit their choices. Clearly many students make that same choice and want to stay in NE (or in the south, or in the west). I don’t disagree with it. Going 3000 miles away isn’t for everyone. Then you have to decide if you are willing to pay more for a named and ranked school, go to a bigger state school, go to a cheaper school that might be a diamond in the rough like one of the Maine schools suggested. There is an outside chance one might get an outside scholarship.
I was in your state of mind when we started applying, with me taking a ‘I will not pay a penny more than $15k and no loans’ but realized that was really limiting the schools we were applying to. I picked that number based on what I thought I’d have to pay at a state school and not knowing anything about EFCs. I was off a little for the one at an OOS public, so I now think that what I pay for her (very close to the EFC) is what I would have paid instate. My other daughter’s merit aid and state grants came remarkably close to the EFC also (private school in our state), but she then got to add her athletic scholarship toward the EFC.