College List for a Student New to the Search Process (Economics, Public Policy, Public Health)

No need-based financial aid with <$20k per year parent contribution is rather limiting. (You can borrow up to $5.5k first year without a cosigner, increasing slightly in later years, through federal direct loans, and you may be able to earn a few thousand dollars in the summer or part time during the school year.)

Will your parents continue to subsidize your living and commuting costs if you stay home to attend a nearby college? If so, then commuting to a nearby UC or CSU (or nearby CC then transfer to a nearby UC or CSU) will likely fall within budget. A stretch budget of $30k per year ($20k from parents + $5.5k direct loan + $4.5k your work earnings in the summer and part time in the school year) may be enough to attend a CSU that you have to live on or near campus to attend. That might also be enough to cover the first two years commuting from home to a nearby CC followed by transfer to a UC that you have to live on or near campus to attend.

Otherwise, you are looking at needing a merit scholarship that covers at least full tuition. Some less selective colleges may offer them automatically based on high enough GPA and SAT score (this is where you may see other posters mentioning Alabama, Arizona, etc., but check the details and thresholds if interested). But others may have competitive merit scholarships, which can effectively turn match / likely / safety for admission colleges into reach for the needed scholarship colleges.

For pre-law, most of the usual advice can be found or inferred from https://schools.lawschoolnumbers.com/ and Application Preparation | Law School Numbers . Law school quality is mostly about law employment outcomes which can be seen at Discover law schools | Law School Transparency . Law school is expensive, so you do not want to have a lot of undergraduate debt to add on to law school debt.

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