Affordable relative to others and she’ll get merit there - but yes, it’s not transparent. Some schools are guesses, some are not (like AZ, Bama, Ms State) but just trying to throw out less than $80K options. She’d likely qualify for Apex and perhaps more - so that’s $7,500 a year. Anyway, you have to have arrows in the fire - and hope one or more sticks.
AZ (and ASU) are great schools, large merit - especially U of A. The size may be overwhelming - she says large but 6K+. I actually think a school like Miami of Ohio is perfect - until she says in the city (it’s in the sticks but within an hour of Dayton and Cincy). There are schools like WWU in Bellingham but they are in smaller but vibrant cities. Still much less than other schools and with merit opportunities and a smaller (16K) campus than the behemoths.