@ucbalumnus thank you for your input. I’m not at all sure what he would need to save for grad school. If nothing else, I assume he would still need to pay for room and board. Do you agree? He’s thinking about a master’s program but that decision is a few years away so he may change his mind and look toward PhD. At that point he’ll have two younger siblings in college too.
His HS doesn’t publish rank outside the top 10%, which seems to be the trend for other highly competitive high schools in our area. He’s not in the top 10%. It’s true it is very important for UT Austin admission (to which he doesn’t plan to apply), but he shouldn’t have trouble with TAMU admission and unless the package changes, he should have auto scholarship at TAMU for NMF (assuming he is NMSF and progresses to finalist).