I’m sorry you’re having to navigate this process with so little support, both financially and in terms of helping you to understand how financial aid works and strategize accordingly. There is literally nothing about a high school education that imparts this insight, so how are students supposed to know?
As has already been stated, the combination of business ownership and home equity set your family up for not-so-generous assessments of financial need at many schools. You saw this with the Northeastern NPC, but you hoped that merit aid would “stack” with need-based aid and get the price down to something affordable. Unfortunately, nobody told you that they don’t do this. Merit aid reduces your need-based aid to keep you at the same baseline cost. The only way the price gets below your EFC (according to their formula) is if you get a merit award bigger than your documented need. But as far as I know, Northeastern’s max merit is $30K (for which you have to be NMF) and even that wouldn’t have gotten your out-of-pocket down to your $30K max budget. Not to mention that if you’re funding college entirely with loans, $30K/year is still a terrible idea.
I agree about the NY STEM scholarship. Having to stay in New York for 5 years is limiting, but it’s a big state, and working within this constraint could be well worth it. That’s assuming, though, that you want a STEM degree. What are you hoping to study?