As I understand it, the above was the issue with Stony Brook, and that it is indeed much more of what is sometimes called a commuter school than a Michigan or Wisconsin, and so will not offer the classic residential college experience. Of course it is up to the OP to decide how much to value that, but personally I think it can be reasonable to want that aspect of a college experience.
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Thank you everyone for sharing your experiences and advice. Being able to get some neutral input is really helpful as it can be difficult to separate out the emotional component in this decision making process. Will let you know how it turns out 
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A piece of advice I was given when faced with the same tuition dilemma for our son was that âItâs ok to disappoint your kid about college, as long as the alternative still has excellent education and opportunities.â Also âThe disappointment doesnât last.â Both of these turned out to be true for us.
Good luck to your daughter, wherever she ends up!
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Although it is better to have laid out the financial constraints up front before the student makes the application list.
Letting the student apply and get admitted to a desired college and only then saying that it is too expensive means creating a big let-down situation that could have been avoided. If the student knew the financial constraints up front, the student would either not apply to colleges that are too expensive, or know up front that they needed a merit scholarship, not just admission, to be able to attend.
One of the common and cringeworthy statements from both parents and students on these forums when making college application lists is âwe are not considering costs now, but will decide after admission results comeâ.
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I wish the high schools would really hone in on this so we donât have to. Lol. We almost made those mistakes when our kids went. My daughter couldnât go to her #1 school. She was excited to get accepted though.We had OOS kid two coming up. If she went we couldnât really afford to help with anything during the school year. She went to her #2 and had a great experience. Got a nice merit scholarship, which saved us some 529 money that sheâs using for graduate school starting this summer. She also was able to not worry about expenses and we used some of the savings to add into her savings account. Win /win. Then she transferred into school #3đ
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