Ultimately, the colleges are at fault here. The fact they reduce any award because of an outside scholarship is foolish. What you must understand is the colleges don't care about your finances so long as you pay them.
Colleges are a business that provide a service and, due to changing student demographics, must increasingly compete. While the Harvards, et al, won't have much problem, the rest will eventually realize that higher education is becoming a buyer's market. When people realize that there are choices, and many things are actually negotiable, that sort of "bait and switch" nonsense disappears. Although private universities have a higher sticker price, I found them easier to deal with, and the one my kids ended up at had a much lower net cost than the surrounding large state schools.