OK - and has to be an LGBTQ friendly state - so states like AL and MS are out. That’s where the money is.
SUNY schools will work - maybe not a Bing or Stony Brook but perhaps an Albany or Buffalo.
Kansas is a home run - not sure related to LGBTQ although KU is liberal - but they have embedded abortion rights into the state constitution. K State is known as a top school for happiness and teaching.
U Denver won’t hit $40K but will be under $60K.
Schools like Central Michigan and Southern Illinois don’t charge out of state tuition.
Hopefully he gets into UMN. I don’t see UW and UMN will be tough due to the GPA but possible. How about Michigan State too - it’s on the left side of the list attached below (most PhDs not accounting for school size)?
Honestly, where you may get your best bang for the buck are the small liberal arts colleges - and they are on the feeder per capita PhD list. A school like Juniata (#4) and Kalamazoo (#6) should get you close to budget. K is down the street from W Michigan (another to look at) - so while it’s small, it’s at least adjacent to larger life, etc. Lawrence in Appleton might be in that same vein.
Obviously, you have UW branches - and again, not knowing the distance - but other liberal state schools could be Colorado State, U of New Mexico….but are these too far? Delaware would be a home run for Chem (think all the chemical companies) but I’m not sure you can get to budget - but you can try.
I honestly wouldn’t worry about R1 - not as an undergrad.
You could also try UNLV/Reno and Wayne State - they are R1 - for what it’s worth.
I don’t think that matters - but if the student were open to schools in the South, it’d open the list more. For example, Alabama, if you have a 3.5 (not sure if weighted or unweighted) would be low 20s with auto merit. Now, Campus Pride gave them a 4.5 out of 5 but yes, the current administration and state are putting in laws.
But if that kind of school were to work - in addition to schools like Bama and Ms State or Ole Miss, even closer to home you have the Iowa schools, Nebraska Schools, Ohio U, WVU, etc.
That’s just some ideas. If anything I wrote resonated or you can clarify deeper, please let me know.