I don’t know of any yacht owners receiving significant need-based aid. Plus the dock fees and all that.
My question is: why are you asking this now? Why not when you ran the NPCs at these schools? Or years ago when you could have planned for this.
As a business owner you had more flexibility than most over the years to move funds into retirement accounts.
As far as your “really nice” house, there are schools where that wouldn’t matter, and there are just plain nice houses that cost less. So, there were options there as well. Why should any college fund the “really” part of nice for you?
My point is that, despite what you paint as a story of your own virtue vs. all those people receiving aid in their yachts, I see someone who didn’t plan well.
But, as others have mentioned, there are many good schools that would cost the 30k you want to spend. There are others, the vast majority of privates, that engage in exactly the kind of differential pricing as the Mercedes dealer.
And, finally, there are FA officers at these schools you can call and explain your situation. That’s what I would do. But I would do it with a different attitude than you expressed initially and with at least a bit of humility. My rather blunt reply was intended to show you there’s another perspective. Apologies if it was over the edge. But I help a few people every year try to figure out the FA process because otherwise they won’t be able to afford college. They aren’t thinking about yachts.