OP- as soon as you all can uncouple “hard work” and “prestigious college” the happier you will be. Not just now, as you are working through the financial realities, but next year, and the year after, and the year after.
If your son’s resent the amount of time they spend doing homework- that’s an easy fix. They can cut back on their academic work and take up photography, pastry baking, volunteering in an animal shelter, becoming a docent in a historical society near you. Or restoring a civil war era cemetery. They don’t need to define themselves by schoolwork.
If they love their studies and are gratified to work hard and to learn- then the reward for hard work is their academic success and the pride it engenders.
What happens in college? Even the “lowest rank” college has serious students who have worked hard and achieved academically. Sometimes the top kids are there because their parents are staff at the college and the free tuition deal was too good to pass up. Sometimes they are there because of a medical issue and they need to be close to home. Etc. But there are smart kids who work hard everywhere.
Rutgers? You’ve got the intensely academic kids, and the kids who are there to party and get their ticket punched, and the kids who might have been slackers in HS but get excited about anthropology or poli sci once they get to college and they become hardworking academics. And you’ve got straight A students with top scores who end up majoring in fraternity hijinks and beer pong.
You cannot predict which kid becomes what kind of college student.
But decouple hard work from “I need to get into Princeton to validate the sacrifices I made in HS by having no life”. That is a surefire way to disappointment-- and isn’t a good way to approach adulthood.
I work hard (and I’m sure you do as well). I don’t drive a jaguar or live in a mansion. The reward for my hard work is a solid paycheck, fantastic colleagues who I love and learn from every day, and slowly but surely funding my retirement. It won’t be on a world cruise, but it is likely to be a financially secure one. So the reward for my hard work is a good life. And the reward for your sons hard work will be a fantastic college education, even if it doesn’t meet the fantasy world we all construct sometimes.