Coming from IL, MN-Morris and Truman State will have a small additional discount for MSEP. All of the non-flagship U of WI campuses will be bargains too. https://msep.mhec.org/
Private colleges don’t tend to give as much merit to transfers as to first-year applicants, so it may be challenging to find schools in this category that will give you enough merit, despite your strong record. For example, Clark University seems like it could be a good fit, but from what I can see, their transfer merit awards top out at 20K, and their total estimated costs are close to 65K. Earlham might be a good one to check out. (I don’t see specific info about the size of transfer merit awards, but they’re pretty generous in general so it could be worth asking.) Agnes Scott in Atlanta is worth a look - it appears that you could get at least 22K in merit, off of a <60K COA, so that’s potentially in range… and it has the kind of urban-adjacent location you want, and cross-registration at other area institutions like Emory and GT.
Good luck - and do let us know how it goes!