<p>"It is an interesting phenomenon that there are many, many people who do not expect to pay the actual cost of a college education. This is not the case for just about any other thing you buy. "
-Kind of not so different if you consider that one could pay whole mortgage at the beginning (because they might have worked hard to accumulated the money) and not pay it while living in the house. It also requires to buy only certain house, not any house. The same here. Kid could have “earned” certain amount of Merit scholarships (since they are mostly coming from private donations, at least it was the case with my D. who attended public state U on full tuition Merit award, that included about 10 different scholarships primarily from private donors). She would not have nearly as much, not any close, if she decided to attend other schools, at some she would not have any at all. On the other hand, she also recieved Merit from one private UG that was close to full tuition. So, it depends on how much the kid accumulated (how high his/her stats) and which college he/she decided to attend. Money were not an issue when D. was choosing her UG. She has chosen her UG based on higher priority item, and it just happened that it was tuition free, which we did not anticipated, She happened to choose to apply only to schools that would give her some Merit package and every school did. She did not apply to any that would not give her any Merit. But again, it was not a priority item.</p>