I’m inclined to think it’s not that OP’s parents can’t pay, but rather that they don’t want to pay. Recall that OP’s father is an immigrant. That means he didn’t grow up with the brainwashing that it’s perfectly normal to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a college education when a perfectly good one can be had for a mere tens of thousands. This brainwashing is a really powerful force in the US that induces otherwise rational people to shut off their cerebral cortex when it comes to paying for college. The logic seems to be that if DC gets into a USNWR-highly ranked college, ze is going, costs be damned.
Another thing is, income is relative. $245K after taxes may sound like an insane amount to some ppl here, but a doctor is likely to know many people who make quite a bit more. The idea of what is an acceptable house, car, etc. changes. And then if you are from an exceedingly poor country like Cameroon (per capital income a little over $1300), isn’t it likely that a lot of your relatives would look at you as a bank?
So I can see why it could feel like money is tight, and why it’d be prudent to save $50K a year by going to UT over Cornell.