The facts presented by OP are salient and are typical of many students. For whatever reason the family EFC and NPCs come up to an amount family cannot or will not pay. In this case, the estimated FAFSA EFC is $40k. The student has done due diligence in discussing college budget and the cost that is affordable is $20k
Some important facts here are that the $40k is the FAFSA EFC, which usually means that is the very Least that a school is going to expect the family to pay. Hardly any schools guaranteed to meet that figure. Very few schools actually meet that number. The schools that tend to guarantee to meet need use far more draconian methods to extract what is usually a much higher Expected contribution from them
So, in such a scenario, a student needs to find schools that cost under $20k. Right now, that is where things are. With the current ACT score, it is highly unlikely a school will give sufficient merit money to bring bring the total cost down to $20k. Usually merit replaces any need based grants or the need is calculated with any institutional merit bringing down the beef figures so , it’s not a simple matter of getting a scholarship on top of the financial aid. It’s pretty much integrated though usually the subsidized interest and work study gets replaced first. You really never know exactly what is happening in that financial aid office when they are integrating merit with need.
The cleanest solution here is to find lists of schools that have some merit money that can pretty much cover tuition. Then it’s a matter of the family picking up room and board, and non direct billed expenses. .
For that first school, the one that OP knows will accept him and is affordable is likely to be a community college.
MA has good, inexpensive schools, so OP is likely to have choices. Looking for a half tuition or $5 k scholarship to bring the tuition cost down to $5k max. Bridgewater university in MA, has a sticker price of about $10k Living on campus comes to about $15k. So if $5k of merit money is found here, it is possible for the student to make this happen. Other MA state schools are comparable in price. OP needs to work on getting merit money from them if he wants to go away to school
The bar will be much higher for most out of state schools and private colleges. Would need a larger scholarship. Enough to cover all but $5k of tuition. With a higher test score, chances do increase in finding possibilities.
I’m in the same situation here for a Cousin, but the state where he lives doesn’t have inexpensive state school options. So it’s community college for him unless he gets a sizeable merit award. Or he can commute maybe to Flagship U which is pretty long distance and he’ll need a car. I also believe a smaller school would be a better match for him. This is a situation that arises a lot for many kids.