Ah. I can be useful here. My entire college search for out-of-state schools with good theatre departments was dependent on getting a full scholarship or something very close to it. I haven't read the whole thread and hope these aren't too redundant, but these schools all offer large merit awards to kids with National Merit standing.
University of Evansville offers full tuition to National Merit Finalists and three fourths to semi-finalists. They also offer fifty full tuition scholarships to those first in their class. I'm going.
Catawba College has a bunch of full and part tuition scholarships for which you have to interview.
Northern Illinois University offers full-tuition, fees, and room and board at in-state rates plus a $200 book stipend to students on par with National Merit Finalist standing. This comes to more than full-tuition at out-of-state rates. You have to interview for it and you need to maintain a 3.3 GPA to keep it.
Southern Methodist University offers half tuition plus $2,000 to National Merit Finalists and offers a few full scholarships.
University of Miami offers lots of merit scholarships that range from half to full tuition. They offered me 3/4.
Boston University offers half tuition to some NMFs and a small number of full tuition scholarships though I hear they're hard to get.
Otterbein College offers up to $11,000 a year in merit scholarships and is very generous with talent money for arts majors. At least, their theatre department is.
University of Arizona offers an almost-automatic $19,500 a year to NMFs.
University of Oklahoma offered a friend of mine a boatload of money, but I don't remember how much it was.