<p>What do you expect from private schools and room/board? If you had gone away to a private boarding school instead of going to a local public high school, it would have been expensive too. Cornell, along with the rest of the Ivy league schools are PRIVATE Schools (though Cornell has some state components for NYers). So you can go to a state school for just about free or very little, just like you went to your public high school. </p>
<p>There are some highly selective schools with merit awards that you might want to check out. <a href=“Colleges and Universities That Award Merit Aid - Graphic - NYTimes.com”>Colleges and Universities That Award Merit Aid - Graphic - NYTimes.com; gives you a start. Look and see what is available and how difficult to get at various schools, and what the amounts might be. </p>
<p>A friend of my son got into UMich as well as Brown. Brown costs about $63K+, U Mich, his second choice school cost $55K , but also offered a $10K merit scholarship. Now we are cooking here. With some belt tightening, working summers, taking out some student loans, this kid is happily at UMich and costing his parents $35K a year which is a load off their budgets. </p>
<p>Get a load of this: <a href=“Colleges and Universities - Education and Schools - Admissions and Testing - SAT - The New York Times”>Colleges and Universities - Education and Schools - Admissions and Testing - SAT - The New York Times; You don’t hear Maria Devlin crying about not getting to go to the top priced schools. She worked for merit money even as a top notch student who could say she deserved HPY with her hard work and accomplishments, but she knew what the situation was for her and dealt with it. By the way, she did end up at Harvard with some honorarium for graduate studies after graduating from UNC-CH as Morehead Scholar. Look her up. Her brother went to Emory for just about free. You did not hear them complaining about their lots in life. </p>