Originally Posted by Tigerle
Thanks, that must have been the publication I read the article about when it first came out.

A comparable piece of hypocrisy would be the practice of gapping, where colleges admit students on the basis of academic merit, but then discourage low SES students from attending by cutting down the financial aid offered to an amount that makes attendance financially unfeasible for them
For most things you buy, including big-ticket items like homes, the seller quotes you a price and is not obliged to finance your purchase. If a college thinks someone is academically qualified, is it obliged to either reject them or meet the full financial need? Some colleges choose to do so (although when need can be met by loans, the definition of "meeting need" is fuzzy), but I don't think not doing so is shameful.

Some commentators will call gapping unfair. Schools that don't gap will charge very different prices to students from families at different income levels, and the parents paying full freight may consider that unfair, since it does not cost more to educate their children. There are multiple plausible definitions of fairness.