There are also considerable ethical issues in assuming that people with estranged parents are somehow undeserving of a college education. If you have no family

There are also considerable ethical issues in assuming that people with estranged parents are somehow undeserving of a college education. If you have no family support, you need college more, not less. Of course, places like Stanford are far more concerned with turning a profit than enrolling poor people. You'll note that the median family income of a Stanford student is $125,000, which is more than double the median family income in the US as a whole. Maybe that's not a lot to you, but it's almost inconceivable to someone who was raised, say, in a family making 12-20K/year. (You complain that people would disown their children to get free tuition, but forget the fact that before it became profit oriented, Stanford used to have free tuition for everyone--no disowning required.)