Colorado Mines is a good school, but I don’t think I’d want to pay a $20K/year premium for it over an in-state alternative (esp. one of the UCs). If $50K is close to your actual Expected Family Contribution (not a budgeted amount that is much lower than your EFC) then you might get a lower net price from a reachy private school than you would from some OOS publics. I’m thinking of places like Grinnell or Macalester (for CS, not Computer Engineering), if the Net Price Calculators show EFCs < $50K or so.