I agree - you’re not close to MIT, Stanford or CMU. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. No pain, no gain. I mean, Chicago reported accepting a 20 ACT. But you’re likely not getting in.
When you say you won’t get money though - that’s not true.
U of Arizona, a fine school, will give you $30K off if the merit table holds - so tuition would be $7-8K. U of Alabama will give you $24K off making tuition about $7K or you’d get $28K off if you move up one point. They don’t superscore. Students with a 30 ACT in the college of engineering get another $2.5k.
There are other schools even less - UAH for example. There are private schools - not the first or even second tier - but LACs or mid size schools - U of Denver, Florida Tech, etc. will give you big merit.
I’m not sure you get into UNC - maybe TO. NC State likely but UNCC for sure.
But you have other options - from a cost POV if you only picked those because of cost…
Good luck.