The best thing you can do is become educated in the process. Understanding college finances, the application process, how to judge your child’s competitiveness in comparison to other applicants, etc will give you the information you need to guide your child toward colleges that are affordable without taking on debt.
Your understanding of merit is incorrect. There are definitely high dollar scholarships out there for top academic students. You also need to understand the big picture of costs. Tuition is only one piece of the puzzle. Room and board on avg costs $12-15000. Add another $1000 for books. So full tuition scholarships can still leave you responsible for around $15,000 in expenses. (For example, being awarded a full-tuition scholarship at Fordham means that with travel costs an estimated cost of $20,000 per yr still exists )
That said, highly competitive top students will likely have financially affordable options if you tune out the voices that deem publics and non-tippy top schools as “second tier.” Tune out the voices that tell you that careers are limited if a students doesn’t attend a small list of highly ranked expensive schools. You’ll hear their echo chamber voices saying that employers only hire students with certain pedigrees. Unless your kid has her heart set on a handful of jobs in finance, their mantra is not transferable across most employers/jobs.
Fwiw, my children face very strict financial limitations when they apply to college. Our ability to contribute to their educations is about 1/3 of what colleges deem our familial contribution. For us, there is no way we can pay more and not undermine our own financial security and our younger children’s financial stability.
Our older kids have all managed to attend college without our taking on any debt and have been able pursue exactly what they have wanted even though they graduated from those “lowly 2nd tier schools.” Their options have not been limited bc they did not attend tippy top elites. Our ds who just graduated from a U ranked around 100 (and attended on full merit scholarship) is on his way to grad school where the dept is ranked in the top 5. Another ds who graduated from a state tech university that is only ranked regionally, not nationally, (also with scholarship $$) has an excellent career as a chemE and according to his age and experience, is earning significantly beyond avg salary expectations. Our current college student is also attending an OOS public on large merit scholarship. We are not concerned about her future career options at all.
Don’t panic. Research and become educated on the process. Save what you can. Don’t let her think dream schools are the only way to a great future bc those dreams can become financial nightmares.