Maybe I should clarify he ROI consideration. I personally believe that my son can get a great education at many, many colleges that won’t cost us 90k/year. But if after serious discussion he has his heart set on a particular college, then we will support him going there regardless of cost (after exhausting all possible merit aid opportunities).
For example, we visited UVA and VT already; he liked the UVA atmosphere and campus a lot and many already-graduated friends from HS went there, so those are on the list. And he specifically chose Lehigh from his own research; we plan on visiting in the next few weeks.
His mother and grandparents lived in Pittsburgh and he also liked both Pitt and CMU campuses, hence those being on the list. As for CWRU, it was on the list originally but fell off as we were hesitant to add additional colleges without removing any for fear of too many college applications.
One of the reasons he is considering Engineering is because my wife and I were Engineering majors. Neither of us is an engineer now, but I firmly believe that my engineering background prepared me to become who I am today. But I also recognize that the hyper-selectivity of engineering college applicants today is totally different than in my time; I would rather he have the freedom to explore and choose for himself.