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The first decision you need to make is: are your kids well-funded enough that a top-ranked school is important? If not, can they pull in a scholarship that makes it possible?
The smart money seems to have it that college education right now is overpriced. From where I sit, major college debt is worth avoiding. Starting adulthood with >20$k in unbankruptable debt seems simply crazy, yet it's being sold as normal.
The most tangible benefits of college seem to me to be: calling another city/town home for 4 years; passing into adulthood with a safety net that is hung much lower than most households, yet still present; learning critical thinking, time management, prioritization, and other fundamental skills; proving to future employers that you can tackle a 4-year project and complete it.
If you're lucky/brave/wealthy enough to get a big-name degree, maybe reputation is worth something. But the point is, the tangibles are pretty much available anywhere, yet clouded by the cult of personality that schools project to make their essentially interchangeable commodity stand out. I'll concede that in some schools it's easier to fall into a community of serious-minded students than others; some places certainly have more peer pressure towards beer pong and football than study. But that has as much to do with the student in question as it does with the environment they are in.
What I'm saying is: look hard at scholarships and state schools. It's too bad you're in AA, since UMich is close enough the kids probably don't want to go despite it being almost certainly a great deal. If they do want to go there, let them move out.
Maybe the actual first question is: what do the kids want in life? Most paths are broadly laid out, anyway; the anxiety and depression come when you're on the wrong one (Johnny T. Welder goes to Med School is just as tragic as the inverse.)
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