@choguy1 The fun really begins at the end of March when your son has acceptances to a few prestigious and expensive private schools! I am sure this will most likely be the case since he is already accepted to the Honors college at your state flagship.
If financially you fall into the unenviable Donut hole, the struggle is real. The outcome is different depending on the family.
My DS was accepted to the Honors college at our state flagship(top 50) with tuition waiver. He was also accepted to a few higher-ranked OOS publics (top 30)with a price tag of around $50k. The decision is easy, it costs us next to nothing for the state school if he lives at home and commutes to school. As March came, things started to get more complicated. He got accepted to Duke with an EFC of 45K and Vandy with cost of 15K. It was a real struggle for our family to pick from the three choices, state school with a cost of zero, Vandy 15K, and Duke 45K. Sometimes I still doubt if we made the right choice.