One school I would look into is Southern Illinois - Carbondale. Illinois is a trans-friendly state and Carbondale is a blue bubble (surrounded by red). It has a surprisingly high number of students who go on to earn a doctorate in various academic fields. The tuition is the same for in-state and out-of-state students, and you should qualify for the University Excellence scholarship ($5500/year) which would make you eligible to compete for their full ride scholarship, the Chancellor’s.
And I think @tamagotchi’s recommendation of U. of New Mexico is a great one for you.
And since UNM was mentioned, I’ll also say that it’s a really good place for looking at language contact, even as an undergrad. I don’t know if that’s an interest of yours, but I mention it because it is for many people coming from multilingual backgrounds (quite reasonably), and so if so, hey.
I was told by a colleague who is a Linguistics professor that one doesn’t necessarily need to major in Linguistics to go to graduate school in this field, as long as you take some foundational courses, languages, have a related major and show potential for research. A linguistics minor or concentration can be sufficient. My younger daughter, also interested in Linguistics, ended up choosing a college that only has a minor/concentration because of other factors. Hopefully this can broaden your options.
This is true, but a student keenly interested in linguistics will still want to go to a school with robust offerings in the area, whether or not there is a major. Personally, I developed an interest in linguistics as a freshman in college (at a LAC), and this was a big reason why I transferred out of the LAC to a larger university… because by first semester sophomore year, I had already taken all the linguistics courses that they had.