DUH, I just realized I’m talking about UVM ( as was the OP). Sorry I didn’t notice the conversion of UVM to UVA (and to focus on my error, I kept it up through 2 more posts!). Apologies. My friend paid the extra $18k or so to UVM when the scholarship was lost.
Will agree that U of Wyoming is cheap to being with and then has good merit on top of it. For those stats, he’d get the highest award (now called the Brown and Gold), and tuition would be about $6500 per year. Really. It has great natural resources courses, environmental engineering and studies, and rocks. Lots of rocks.
CSU in Ft Collins is a similar school, but about 3x the size and it will cost you more. It is closer to the airport, is in a bigger city, but the schools are very similar. They are in the same athletic conference and have a lot of rivalries.