<p>It might be more helpful if people on this thread viewed colleges for what they really are, price discriminators intent on maximizing their total revenue from all sources. In non-economics speak that means they try to extract the maximum revenues they can by treating each applicant as a separate financial pool. There are papers in the economics literature showing that some of the California schools adjust tuition to take advantage of increases in federal and state aid so as to maximize their total take from students, the feds, and the state.</p>
<p>Financial aid is simply the college word for reducing the price that it charges person A relative to person B. They have a better gig than other price discriminators like airlines and movie theaters because they get you tax return. </p>
<p>To say that it is immoral not to pay the lowest possible amount to an institution that is trying to maximize its revenues at your expense is not, in my view, particularly sensible.</p>