<p>There are hundreds of schools that operate like Central College. Iowa has 24 private colleges, everyone one of them except Grinnell and Luther operate like Central. Some give bigger discounts than others.</p>
<p>Even some fairly highly rated ones use discounts. Centre College gave 115 of their 128 freshman that did not qualify for need based aid a merit scholarship with an average of $16,000 each. Look at Hendrix College for another example of significant discounting.</p>
<p>I posted a link up thread to a Noel-levitz report. The report lists some 125 schools that N-L works with on revenue optimization. My guess is that every school on that list discounts along (merit aid given to almost everyone) with 100s more not listed.</p>