Financial aid based upon cost of living

Ok well it looks like you need to start to pin down what your famiy can pay. Right now, the numver you put out, your family can cover your room and board. So you are looking for schools with a full tuition award which is not a whole lot of schools. Certainly not the state flagships you mention. You could get a large automatic award at Univ of Alabama.

For UC the minimum you would have to pay would be the OOS tutiion supplement, plus self help (student loans+student contribution, plus your EFC. So about 23k + 8k = 31k + EFC. UW you could be a full payer Texas a full payer. So you list is looking totally unrealistic at 13k parent contribution plus your student loan of 5k. You need to focus on low cost colleges, full tuition colleges, merit aid colleges. They will use the M+CR portion for admissions and merit aid. That’s without AFROTC, I don’t know how that works, if it is at all colleges and guaranteed your first year or you have to get it later or what.