First of all, a big hurray for your parents. It’s not often that one finds families willing to look beyond the “HYPMS or state college” binary. Secondly, by all means, run the NPC for all your choices, but TBH, I think there is a Greek chorus on CC that tends to be very discouraging of northeastern colleges because of their lack of merit-based aid. But studies have shown that in this country you have to be pretty wealthy not to qualify for some kind of tuition discount whether it be in the form of a merit-based scholarship or a need-based grant. I would be absolutely shocked if at the end of the day, Cornell, Wesleyan, Wellesley, or Tufts charged a two wage-earner family of four making $100Ka year much more in tuition than UMass would.
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