“The student who wants merit money but does not have financial need, does not request need-based aid and does not submit financial documentation – has not set a contingency to their offer. That student signed a paper saying if admitted, they will come, no strings attached.”
Nonsense. That may be the way ED works at, say, Penn or Brown. But as noted above, that’s not how ED works at Denison and Grinnell.
More than half the kids at Denison and Grinnell get merit, and the merit award comes with the admissions letter. If applying ED at those schools meant sacrificing the chance to get and consider a merit award, then few people would apply ED. And Denison and Grinnell (who heavily rely upon their merit programs to enroll students) would be stupid to drive those ED/merit seeking applicants away. The schools have this all figured out.
There’s many many different versions of need aid and merit aid at various schools. It is far from black/white.