My D and I have personal experience with this. We set the budget at UMassA’s COA (for us) and she was able to find several schools that came in less expensive. I believed that UMA was a better school than most of those but not double the price better, especially for a student who doesn’t want that large university setting. Its a real shame that even at UMA it would have required private parent plus loans taken out by myself. As a single parent with a FAFSA EFC of just under $6000 that first year, it was really surprising to get a price tag TRIPLE that at our instate flagship. Between us with earnings, savings, student loans and work study, there would have still been a difference of at least $5K.
D was an early admit and selected for the BioTap program and Commonwealth Honors College but chose another school for financial reasons (and fit). Not every state student will have the application stats that she had and with it becoming increasingly difficult to even get admitted, never mind pay the COA, is is definately moving out of reach for many students.