We looked seriously at how generous colleges have been in the past with scholarship money, and if scholarships were stackable. My D is very frugal, so discussing financial matters and managing expectations with her was easy because she was realistic. We decided to include some financial reaches on her list, but we all knew everything would have to somehow align perfectly to attend. Two schools in the 50s were the most generous with scholarships and grants for D, bringing their costs down to almost the very least expensive option on her list (and that was an incredibly cheap option that D would’ve been happy to attend). She will be attending one of those initially $50k schools in the fall.
We did mention travel costs at that school, and they found additional money for D. Remember that negotiating costs is possible. It doesn’t always pan out, but it is possible. Just don’t depend on it, of course.
I know that your question was about tuition, but these matters are related to finances, as well:
Application and audition costs are ridiculous, especially when applying for so many schools. Thankfully, D had a job that helped pay for part of that and some of her lessons. I met others at Unifieds who did the same, and a couple whose only gift at Christmas was those fees.
One way to bulk up your possibilities without paying much initially is to do walk-ins at Unifieds if you’re attending them. You’re taking a big chance in being able to have a walk-in audition, so I wouldn’t do this for schools to which you definitely know you want to audition. But, you can make a list of your top choices, then see which schools often offer walk-ins, and add a few those which are not on your initial top choice list to a “possible walk-in list.” (D had a “top choice” list of 15 schools, then knew she’d probably want to walk-in at some others. She ended up walking-in at 3, a couple of which she didn’t know about beforehand. She loved the “spontaneity” of walk-ins and was eager to do them. It was fun for her to roam around and see which were taking walk-ins. In fact, she ended up wanting to do 1 or 2 more, but they were already booked.)