Which colleges would be best for my situation and major?
I am currently a high school student interested in pursuing a career in astronomy and astrophysics and I was wondering which schools would be best for my major? I intend to complete school all through a Ph.D, and my family lives comfortably, but not rich. At most, we can afford to pay about $35K per year (total) but even that is pushing it. Any recommendations for schools?
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In this STEM fields such as the ones you're looking at, you can't get better than MIT or Caltech for these majors. However, for a bit of personal advice, I know a really smart, studious student in my community who graduated high school a few years ago. She really wanted to get into MIT for astrophysics but ended up going to UCLA as her second choice, which surprised me until she told me that their aeronautical engineering program was one of the best ranked in helping people get into masters and PHD in astrophysics at MIT. Most of the UC schools (LA, San Diego, Santa Cruz, and Bererkly) have really strong astrophysics programs and UCSD and UCSC are also more affordable. Hope that helps!
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Look at the schools with observatories -- Arizona & Hawaii. There are also some smaller colleges with excellent programs -- including some of the women's colleges. As an undergrad, you may have more research opportunities at smaller schools.