See, this is one of those posts that makes me wish the emoji-react system wasn’t broken for me so that I could respond with the 
it merits.
Hello there! That’s us, too, as you’ve seen in the music major area. My son is doing two or possibly three applications during “break”, and a complex scholarship essay due by 12/31. He’s recording the complete, pretty detailed, audition for CU Denver by next week (no prescreen or in-person auditions, so the recording is substantial). We’re trying to do some restful things, too, and enjoy his last high school winter break! It’s hard to have so much to do when it’s supposed to be rest time.
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Oh yes. My D is working on a few more. Options are good!
I know that nothing has seemed quite the right fit for your son. Right now, I’m totally spitballing, having looked for places with lower costs for tuition (thinking that even a small scholarship will get you to your target price). I can’t emphasize enough that this is just a list of places to look into a bit further to see if they have the campus life, etc, that your son wants. These are not recommendations, but places that I’d investigate further if this was my son (with your son’s wishlist). Many of these are classified as commuter campuses, though for some bigger schools or those with a high percentage of first years living on campus, it may not necessarily feel like it if there’s still a sizable number of students on campus (even if it’s not the majority of the student body).
I was going to message you privately, but the benefit of this forum is that there are posters from all over the place and they can hopefully provide additional insight on these particular schools as well as additional suggestions.
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Bridgewater State (MA): About 8400 undergrads. 45m from Boston (too far for his tastes?). It’s classified as a commuter campus, but 70% of first year students live on campus. I’m not sure if the music program is big enough for him though (6 majors in most recent year).
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East Tennessee State: About 10k undergrads. It’s classified as a commuter campus and College Board doesn’t have the stats on what percentage of first years live on campus. But there is a really sizable music program here (25 music majors and 14 musicology ones in the most recent graduating class).
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Florida Atlantic: About 25k undergrads. Classified as a commuter campus with 57% of first years living on-campus. 9 music majors, 7 music ed majors, and 10 music management majors. I’m pretty sure that even a small merit scholarship would get him in-state pricing, which would bring costs into budget.
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Grand Valley State (MI): About 19k undergrads at this residential campus where 85% of first years live on-campus. 37 music majors in the most recent class, so a good-sized program. It is in the midwest, which I know is not your son’s preference.
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Lamar (TX): About 8 undergrads at this commuter campus where 58% of first-years live on campus. Texas is another place where a modest merit scholarship can shift the pricing to in-state, which would bring this within budget. 38 music majors in the most recent class, so a good size.
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Morgan State (MD): This HBCU is in Baltimore, so lots of stuff to do there, plus it’s not far from D.C. There are about 7k undergrads at this school that’s classified as a commuter campus, but 80% of first-years live on-campus. There were 18 music majors in the most recent class.
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U. of Memphis (TN): This school with about 17k undergrads is also classified as a commuter campus, with only 49% of first years living on campus. But it’s in a great town for music lovers and there are 33 general music majors and 28 music/other majors in the most recent graduating class.
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U. of South Florida: This school with 37k undergrads is classified as a commuter campus with 57% of first years living on campus. There are 25 music ed majors and 14 music performance majors in the most recent graduating class. Again, a modest scholarship should bring this to in-state costs.
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U. of Southern Mississippi: This school with about 11k undergrads is practically in-budget at sticker price already (there’s a very minimal OOS upcharge). It’s a commuter campus where 80% of first year students live on campus. There were 39 music ed majors and 29 music majors in the most recent graduating class, so a sizable music community as well.
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Valdosta State (GA): There are about 9k undergrads at this school classified as a commuter campus with 71% of first years living on campus. There were 22 music majors and 4 music performance majors in the most recent class.
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Has anyone mentioned or have you checked UAH? They have music per a web search. You’d get 15.5k and be in about 20-ish. Easy app. Huntsville is booming and there’s stuff to do plus nature. You can even fly there.
I may have missed the major but SD school of Mines is in very cool Rapid City …lots of nature-ey things abound. With $7k off you look to be under $20k. You can fly there too.
Both show music experiences.
Good luck.
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D23 has an ambition of 9 more applications over break… argh. bunch of reaches, couple of safeties. Full on independent/obstinate mode.
I can’t remember where you’re from—with the “not in Wisconsin” bit, is that Wisconsin? If so, you should look at Midwest Student Exchange options (and if not, whatever regional compact you’re in)—someplace like IUPUI or the U of Missouri St Louis might work.
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This is great insight on Tulane. And yes, one of many factors we are taking into account is where D23 would fall on socio-economic scale at her desired school. She doesn’t want to be the only one on a tight college student budget.
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I’ve had two kids on financial aid at two different private high schools. It’s been a great opportunity but yeah, the comparisons they have made to their classmates are sometimes galling.
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And connected to @bethy1’s and @Gatormama’s comments, my D17 went to Muhlenberg on their biggest merit scholarship (the amazingly-named Henry Melchior Muhlenberg Scholarship), and it wouldn’t have been even remotely affordable for us otherwise. The student body there skews wealthy—by any measure, one of the richest student bodies in the country—and she occasionally talks about being one of the “scholarship kids” (yes, that’s how she gets referred to), and how it’s kind of weird being surrounded by people who, well, of course you spend your summers in the Hamptons, and long weekends in the winter mean that you fly to Stowe or Mont Tremblant. It gets weird sometimes.
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Interesting because per the last CDS (2020-21) Muhlenberg had 1279 of 1940 get need based aid or 2/3 receiving aid. A school like Tufts is 2/3 full pay as is Colgate. Dartmouth is over half full pay.
Not disputing your student’s experience. I get it.
But Muhlenberg seems impressive vs some of these other more ‘elite’ institutions in regards to spreading the financial aid love.
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Colgate and Tufts have (well, had, back in 2016–7 when D17 and I were researching this, not sure of the stats now) the 3rd and 10th most wealthy student bodies in the country, respectively. So they’re outliers, and not really a solid basis for comparison.
Muhlenberg has worked hard to increase the number of Pell-eligible students they bring in since then. They used to be one of the worst in the nation for that, but now are much better (though still well below the average). I do suspect that my kid’s experience might well be different now.
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Fair point. I looked at 2014-15 and they were just under half awarded need so a much higher percentage of kids get need today. Plus they have merit aid.
What’s really amazing is nearly a quarter of the students at WSTL, Colorado College, and Colgate come from the top 1% of families income wise. Not sure I know anyone in that range. A full 20%+. Wow.
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We were very intentional when looking for schools for D20 and D23 to include S/E diversity in the search.
D20’s school has almost 25% pell grant recipients, the school that is currently #1 for D23 (no decision made yet) has almost 30% pell grant recipients. Not surprisingly, both schools score well in social mobility rankings on the big school-ranking lists.
D20 has friends at her college who had literally never flown on a plane before they went on study abroad. She also has friends who never fly anything but business/first class, and a couple who fly private. Thankfully, her school isn’t majority either experience. But that was a conscious choice* on our part to find schools that weren’t majority full pay families.
We also looked for schools that didn’t structure their R&B in a way that allowed inequity to flourish. Every school that our children seriously considered has a single set rate for all housing (except singles) as well as a single set rate for all meal plans (there is usually a few choices in how meal plan money is distributed).
There are lots of metrics one can use to find schools - I think we each (consciously or unconsciously) reveal a lot of our own values during the college search with what we prioritize and in what order.
*We are a full pay family who decided well before college searches began that we wouldn’t ever be willing to pay full price. Each of our children’s searches has been a merit money search to find schools that would get down to the budget we set.
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Can you share the name of these schools?
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Sent you a PM. 
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Curious where your S20 goes with the “soul-crushing” CompSci program. I want my kids to study CompSci…I don’t want it to ruin them. 
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Hope they respond - but business (for them) will certainly be less intensive than comp sci - and comp sci / engineering can be soul crushing anywhere. Yes, a lot depends on the student and school but the majors are brutal.
These majors have very high change major / drop out rates - from 40-60% depending on the study.
Best of luck to your student.
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Another Tulane parent here and my Ds experience has been there are some tough classes but not overwhelming. She’s also on the dance team and performs at a significant number of sporting events, involved in her sorority and other clubs and will still manage to graduate with honors. She has loved the experience of a cool city and a smaller school vibe.
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In some cases, yes. At UVM they have an “out of state student grant” that is need-based. My other son will be attending a small New England LAC beginning in January and received 2 different “grants” post-acceptance totally separate from his merit $, so appears need-based.
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