<p>Wait, you said your EFC is 13,000 - that’s not how much financial aid you’ll get, that means you’re expected to pay $13,000 per year. In case that makes any difference.</p>
<p>Also, put these $500-800 into retirement savings, those aren’t counted in your EFC. (You can then use them for your son if you wish but they wouldn’t be counted as assets and that’d likely decrease your EFC.)
Your younger son’s diagnosis would also be taken into account to reduce the EFC, especially if you have medical bills. Don’t buy a car this year, either, as that raises your EFC for some reason.</p>
<p>Ask your question on “the college solution” website, the financial adviser there is very knowldgeable (you may have seen/read her column for CBS).</p>
<p>Pennsylvania is one of these states where it may be cheaper to send your child to a private school than to a public university. (part of the problem is that State funding has decreased so much :s).
Check out Lehigh, Bucknell, Lafayette, Union, Trinity (CT), for engineering. Since your son would be “first gen” ( = “neither you nor your spouse graduated from a 4 year college”) colleges with holistic admissions would take that into account too and factor it in his favor.
Run the NPC’s on these websites. You’ll probably be pleasantly surprised.</p>
<p>Check out the NPC’s for the tech institutes like wpi, rit, stevens, rennselaer, rose hulman.
In addition, NM School of mining and technology; Missouri School of Science and Technology; South Dakota School of mining and technology all have fairly low costs.</p>
<p>Out of state public universities that may be worth it financially are UMN-Twin Cities and the SUNY’s (in nearby New York state).</p>
<p>As a reach, your son should apply to Haverford for physics: they have a new 4+1 program where admitted students graduate with a degree from Haverford in Physics and a Masters in Engineering from Penn (The University of Pennsylvania, the Ivy league school). It’s a definite reach for him with a 3.4 but first gen + upward trend + lots of honors/Ap classes make it worth a try because they meet need (which in your case would be considered high) and their financial aid is very, very generous. It’s the equivalent of winning the lottery. Odds are very low, but rewards are very high.</p>
<p>In PASSHE schools, Shippensburg has Computer Engineering and Software engineering; Physics with Engineering is available at West Chester.</p>
<p>Another alternative is to target private schools where his stats place him in the top 25% applicants but few of those offer engineering.</p>
<p>If your son is interested in Computer Science, that would open a lot more possibilities, especially with full-need schools.</p>