We have a straight-forward situation.
Eldest applied to in-state colleges and full-need privates. The full need privates all met our EFC or shaved off an extra grand (she’s attending one of those.) The public’s gave her the top grant which covered tuition but being in a pricey state, living at home would be the only way to beat the private school offers even including travel expenses.
Fast forward 4 years and Son is going through it all. Our Efc is now 100 dollars over the top grant cut-off so all the public offers to date are a good 10k over our EFC unless living at home. NPC didn’t catch that. We are grateful that came out this year though instead of next when we would have been committed to a school for 3 years full pay (well, minus the 1k middle class grant they threw in.) So, he’s planning on attending one of the private schools he’s gotten into which have all met or are less than our EFC… even the one school that does not profess to give full need.