Sorry for the confusion. I usually think only in terms of financial aid.
We don’t qualify for financial aid from most out of state schools ( I think maybe UVM or Delaware offered a small grant ), so for those schools it would come down to merit. And I highly doubt we will get a merit scholarship that will bring down the tuition to close to SUNY levels so I am trying to get ahead of the situation and offer other potentials options. It’s difficult because it’s been hard to get my kid to articulate Why he likes some schools and not others
private schools that require the Profile, we seems to qualify for need based institutional aid but the need aware aspect means maybe he will get rejected because of that. I will look into that Lafayette article mentioned.
We are solidly middle class, in public service, in a high cost area with significant student loan debt myself. My goal is not to have my kids burdened as we were.