Not sure if you have statistics showing the change in merit based aid over time, would be interested if you have some. But you can get a great education at a school below that top tier if you haven't been saving enough/earning enough to pay for those top schools. Believe me, it isn't the end of the world for our kids to go to a top 60 school vs. a top 20 school. My older D has very good merit aid to a top 50 school; her more gifted younger sister will likely go to a slightly better school with a similar amount of merit aid (or a similar school with better aid :)). We are visiting for second one now, and looking carefully at the merit aid options for all the schools. Believe me, no school where my kid is at the top of the stats pool will get an application from her if they don't offer good merit aid -- we took an LAC off the list just recently because they dropped merit aid for all students.
I don't call it "aid" if it is a loan, by the way. I know the colleges do, but that is obviously not an accurate term.
I did see that the original poster was from Australia, but thought the person who resurrected the thread was not.
