Top 20 in a specialty is a stretch for me. I could see if something was the top school for something - otherwise, we get into the wishy-washy world of school r

Top 20 in a specialty is a stretch for me. I could see if something was the top school for something - otherwise, we get into the wishy-washy world of school rankings which really can be manipulated and start to mean less as you go down the list. However, let's hypothetically say that top 20 is a good cutoff - there is still the very real issue of a 17 year old kid (because that's when we apply to college) following through on that specialty. It doesn't matter how good a CS program CMU has if you decide two semesters in to pursue that BFA. Now, for your specific examples, provided that you are in-state, they actually are reasonable options for any degree. Texas (10k), Michigan (14k), Cal Berkeley (14k) and GT (10k), all excluding room and board. On the other hand, I'd really not want to send my kid to those schools from out of state unless she had some pretty specific plans and seemed reasonably likely to follow through. And if that were the case, we'd probably pay that first year out of state while figuring out residency to try and bring that down.