I'd recommend taking a look at the government FAFSA website. They have a calculator that can estimate how much financial aid you can expect to receive from the government and how much your parents can afford to pay for college. Also...contact some prospective college's financial aid departments and see what they recommend and can tell you. If you have a solid GPA and ACT/SAT score, you could very easily qualify for thousands of dollars a year. I would not count on a music scholarship. You might get a good one at a smaller school, but they are often hard to come by or small. (Don't get me wrong, I do know people who have gotten full rides, too).