It's still a coin flip between the two State colleges.  The schools themselves are pretty much the same in most ways (academics and job opportunities).  Both are impossible to beat from a cost/benefit standpoint. The decision at this point is purely how/where MM wants to live.  

MM told us he would decide this week.

He did get his last private school rejection last Wednesday.  (They pushed back decisions about 10 days due to huge increase in applications, so is why it's getting so late).  So yeah, the second he does decide, we need to scramble with housing applications and orientation signs ups (which opened up last week).

We dropped everything last Thursday and took him to tour both schools, to help his decision.  He toured both at some point but has been a while.  MM is so tactile, I knew it would be good for him to go see in person, as he makes his final decision.  It also gave us a chance to do our first longer trip in the electric car.  600 miles roundtrip.  Not the most practical with such a rushed trip.  But it looks like we can get away with paying -$0- for fuel if we can have more time on these trips.  (I will do another post later about the road trip/electric car). 

This is what I wrote in my first official college post in this blog (4 years ago):

Some of the ways that we expect to keep college costs down:

--Saving money ahead of time for college
--Scholarships
--MH working more while kids are in college
--Possibly finding an employer who will chip in with college costs (re: Grad school)
--Kids working in high school/college, even if just during summers
--Thinking outside the box as to housing (which is important with the high housing costs here)
--Mostly considering public colleges
--Community college (this is really what all the regional public colleges prefer these days, getting first two years done at CC, so motivation is more than just saving money)

Certainly not meant to be an all inclusive list, but in general sums up how we stayed out of college debt.

All of these things will come into play.   A college student gave us a tour of the farther away college.  One thing she mentioned was that most students take at least one online GE class at the community college every semester, because it's cheap and easy.  (Community college is currently free in our state?  Before that it cost virually nothing).  I had kind of written off community college re: the specific colleges MM applied to (beyond anything more than maybe a summer class here and there).  But maybe we will utilize after all.   

MH has voiced wanting to go back to work full-time.  I had told him to put a pin in that with the more mushy gushy private schools (more income wouldn't help our bottom line).  But...  That's all moot anymore.  He can make as much money as he wants, we might actually be able to keep some of it!  Both sets of Grandparents have offered to help more, even with the cheap public colleges.  So...  Will see if any of this sticks.  Not sure what to do with all this.  If they do both help *and* MH gets a full-time job...  We may just tackle our mortgage??  MM(17) should also be getting mega high paying summer internships, with either of these colleges.   Will see what sticks and will figure it out.  

When MM picks a college, I will go through numbers in more detail.  Will just start with my current salary and current assets.  Anything else will be gravy; not counting any eggs before they hatch.