Depending on where you live and how you have been able to save, and given the way tuition has gone up, Union’s move is smart. It also matches what many other private schools have done. (And most that have done it are working hard to make sure applicants know about it.)
Many schools have found that they have FP students and ones who need lots of FA but the distribution is increasingly missing the group in between.
I hardly consider Union a “lesser” school. Lesser known, maybe. But a student can get a great education there. I would not have been at all upset if my kid had ended up there.