I don’t buy into the article. Yes, many families are getting merit aid to reduce the sticker price of schools. But, merit does not increase as the cost of the school increases. My S24 gets 25K in merit from Denison, but I just saw that their tuition/room/board is increasing 5K for the 2025-26 school year. Assuming it increases about that much for his entire stay, the 25K merit becomes a lesser piece of the pie.
I would also say the NPC is a pretty rough estimator - especially for schools which use the CSS profile. I’ve had packages come back all over the board compared to what the NPC showed. I think many schools don’t update the calculators on an annual basis.