<p>As others have said, one thing your mother needs to understand is that private is not necessarily more expensive than public. There are many private schools that offer decent merit aid to attract good students, and for students with higher EFCs, this merit aid can often lower the college cost so that is comparable to that of a good public university (often, families with higher EFCs receive little aid from public universities). So you really cannot evaluate the cost until after you have seen the financial aid package each school offers.</p>
<p>For example, last year when S was applying to college, our EFC was $13,000. S’s GPA was around 3.2, SATs in the low 1300s so a good student but certainly not stellar. S was acccepted at our flagship public university (safety), with a cost of attendance around $19,000 including room/board, but received no merit aid/grant, just a few thousand in student loans and work study. He was also accepted at his first choice, a smaller second tier out of state private university that costs twice as much, but he received a 4-year merit scholarship and grant that covered half the cost, and because this brought down the cost so much, he was able to go there at roughly the same cost as the state school. One LAC he applied to even ended up being less than the state school (but was not a good a fit due to his major).</p>