There are plenty of posters in various threads who have said things such as, “if you (the parent) are paying the bill, then you should have your child go to the less expensive state U,” etc. etc. I have seen this quite a bit in the last few weeks as the May 1 decision looms. So I totally get your question, OP.
Regarding the posters who are pushing back at you for being accusatory, the insertion of just the 2 words “some of” as the 3rd and 4th words of your question would have avoided that, and would have been more accurate. Having said that, it is perfectly clear what you meant so I’m not sure why parental feathers have been ruffled!
In any event, we make decisions jointly in our family. Sometimes it starts with a strong desire for something (say, a dream school), followed by due diligence and a realistic assessment of the ramifications of this choice, including whether it can be paid for. If you’ve taken economics, you are aware of the concept of opportunity cost. This looms very large in college decisions. How much will a family have to give up in order to pay the tuition bill? By going to school A what are you foregoing by not attending school B? We visited many schools with our daughter, asked her to apply for merit scholarships, and ranked the COAs as the results came in.
Ultimately the decision was hers. She didn’t choose the most expensive or the least. She chose the one that had the best mix of quality academics, the majors she was interested in, value, relative ease of traveling to (preferably a day’s drive max) and most important, the place where she felt she would thrive. But getting to that decision point required a lot of research, visits and discussion.