Merit aid AND near mountains or scenic nature areas?

[Eos]

nvm, already listed.

Edited March 25, 2023 by Eos

[gstharr]

I don't about the merit aid aspect, but a school in most parts of S. Cal. would put him within a couple of hours drive of the ocean, mountains, snow,  desert, etc, and easily such diversity as   snow and the ocean in the same day. 

[JanetC]

On 3/23/2023 at 7:21 PM, rzberrymom said:

Thing is, he needs way more than just the WUE discount. I figured privates might be the better approach, unless it’s something like UNM.

University of Arizona isn't WUE, but offers strong entry-level merit aid to compete with WUE discounts and then adds on more for higher GPA's/scores. It was a bit less than in-state for UDub for my kiddo, and the honors admissions advisors were easy to work with when we had questions about things. If you need even more merit aid than in-state public tuition, you may need to keep looking but I thought I'd mention it.

Also, I agree that if you need more financial aid than just getting the price down to in-state public costs, you may really need to focus on need-based aid rather than merit, perhaps even zeroing in on schools that will take your special circumstances into account if your affordability issues are more than what the financial aid formulas consider. Need-based aid at out-of-state-publics like WUE schools is going to be hit-or-miss as many states prioritize in-state for their need-based money.