Well, you (your child) can't go to any school you can't afford. Clodfobble's story about getting a .5k token against a 30k expense is sad/funny. Ouch. Those folks who talk about the upper-mid range colleges/universities being roughly equal are right on target. It does make a difference at the level where the school is a "brand", but none of them were even a dream for me or for my children. If you're in a position to consider such schools seriously, that is super awesome.
For most folks though, cost is a/the major factor. Getting that degree (possibly the first in a series) with a minimum cost is HUGELY important. Young graduates with X tens of thousands of dollars in debt is like being born underwater. It's hard to catch your breath when you're at your weakest, professionally speaking. Reasonable people can disagree about the single factor/most important reason(s) for going to college, but all of them will agree that "to amass a large debt" is not one of them--avoid it, reduce it, finesse it the best you can, all the way through. Cost matters, **a lot**.
Beyond that, what does your student like? Not just academically, but athletically and socially and geographically, etc, etc. Those factors are just as real as the degree and the costs. I was one of the unusual students in that I picked my major, never changed it, graduated with a degree in that area (BS Computer Science) and then worked for decades in that field. Just lucky I guess
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What are your child's ideas about what school to choose?