How much are you and your DD able to pay out of pocket? Is $5-10k coming out of savings and income during the school year? So, Is the $5500 Direct Loan your DD will be able to take out for the year in addition to the $10k figure?
What is your estimated EFC? What is your 2018 income using AGI on that 1040?
I’m trying to see if you qualify for Simplified Needs (Your 2018 AGI under $50k) and Auto-Zero EFC (AGI under $26k).
I’m looking at FAFSA only right now.
What is your DD’s father’s 2018 income, approximately?
Looking at those schools that use FAFSA only And will not consider your Ex’s financials, you pretty much have the in state schools. You say you have run a number of NPCs. How are the MD state schools coming out in Net Price? What are UMD-CP, UMBC, Salisbury, Towson, Frostberg, etc reporting? I can tell you that in NY, it would be tough to get the sleep away school price to under $15k because room and board is pricey here , and the state aid formulas do not tend to stack. It would be easy to get free state tuition for her, but beyond that is challenging. I do not know if Maryland is more generous to those students who want to go away to school.
I’m going to list some problems and alternatives I see:
Looking for merit money is going to be problematic because most schools will reduce need with scholarship awards. Let’s say we are looking at a school that has a total cost of $75k. Let’s say that she gets $50k in a financial aid package from the school. Let’s say she also gets $20k in merit money. That does not mean the school will necessarily stack the $50k + $20k and give her $70k in combined Financial aid and merit money. No, no, no no! They will more likely reduce her need of $50k by the $20k merit money and reduce her financial aid do that she gets $50k in scholarships and aid. The same if she gets outside scholarships. Most school require your DD to report them, and they usually reduce financial aid. They usually start the reduction with subsidized loans and work study, but with high need , it will likely eat into the grants as well
So, in order to get grants that don’t just Reduce financial aid, your DD needs to get pretty much s full ride or close to it. At very least a full tuition scholarship. Those are very very difficult to get. Though your daughters numbers are excellent, if you look in these forums, you’ll see many students with near perfect scores vying for those big awards and it’s a reach or lottery ticket for them
I would look at some OOS schools that have good merit if UMD-CP and your other instate public schools are unaffordable. Some mentioned above like @coolguy40’s suggestions might work. But that means a lot more in travel costs than staying in state, and you have a strong state flagship. Trying to “beat” UMD-CP in rankings and total price is not going to be easy.
If smaller schools interest and fit your DD better, I suggest looking at Albright, McDaniel, Elizabeth town, Hofstra, and UDenver.
She can, of course, for high reach schools try to go for some schools generous with financial aid that tend to be selective and hope that the Financial did packages come in affordable when her father’s NCP financial info included on CSS Profile. Rice will give full rides to those with family income below s certain set point and other schools like that may also have such initiatives. The problem is that they are lottery tickets for admissions.
There are also little known schools in South Dakota, Mississippi, Nebraska, Texas…far away places, where one can get the whole kit and kaboodle for under $15k. Research, least expensive colleges in US. There are also schools like Berea, Alice Lloyd, Ozarks with unusual programs. I particularly recommend Soka and Deep Spring in California.