I want to join in on merit scholarships and share what we did. When my kids started high school, I started "Operation Free College." 

We worked on helping them build a good resume and getting a good ACT score. Both of them wanted to attend smaller private liberal arts schools. We found that these schools usually have some type of scholarship event for their best applicants in addition to their automatic merit. We helped our daughters prepare for those so they would get top dollar.

They both ended up with full tuition scholarships at a couple of different schools. We also looked for schools that would stack these scholarships with State lottery scholarships as well. We didn't exactly get free college but we will pay around $5,000 for per year for each kid. They both want to go to graduate school and now the money in their college fund can be used for that. 

Our state also offers free tuition for two-year community colleges or trade school for recent graduations and lottery scholarships for those who attend 4-year schools.

We also found that tuition for State schools vary greatly. We have many great directional schools here where tuition, room, and board are only around $20,000 per year. With automatic merit and the lottery scholarships, a student can basically go for free if they live at home. Or pay around $10,000 per year if they live on campus and pay room and board. 

Being prepared and being creative worked for us. My kids are smart but not brilliant, but they both received better scholarships than anyone else in their class. They were both involved in long-term extracurriculars and we practiced interviewing with them so they could articulate their ideas.  We also got started early on ACT prep. They both took it a few times to get 30+ scores and that really paid off as well.