I think it’s also important to mention that if a student is receiving any amount of need-based aid, closing the cost gap with outside scholarships may not work the way the student assumes it will.
Every year, we see students who are caught by surprise when outside grant money that they had counted on to pay their bills, actually gets gobbled up by the college, because additional scholarship money reduces the student’s demonstrated need and the need-based aid gets adjusted downward. Here’s the latest example of this scenario: CWRU keeping grant
Sometimes colleges will allow students to “stack” scholarships and need-based aid, but often they won’t. Making over-optimistic assumptions and then having money you’d counted on evaporate is a path to be avoided.