This is very true, however I have seen this diminish greatly over the past decade. First child (HS'2014) got tons of merit incentives from OOS and Private schools. Last child (HS'2023) had similar stats (maybe better in some cases) and saw significantly less. This is a side-effect of increasing demand and schools reassessing the ROI. For example, as many kids are still enrolling w/ $8k tuition waiver as were enrolling with a $16k tuition waiver. That said, ALWAYS apply for aid.
I know it is early, but one thing to keep in mind is the university places students in its majors. Many of the larger engineering schools have first year engineering programs (FYE), as 90% of the classes and requirements are the same. Understand how students get placed after FYE. An example: at Texas A&M, Computer Science is part of engineering and is subjected to the FYE program. Students are placed based on their GPA and requests. Because of supply, only students with 3.75 GPA are automatically placed in the major of their choice. And for CS, very few outside of these "automatics" got CS as their choice. Knowing what can transpire in freshman year in college, a couple of bad days, a shitty professor or TA, illness, or whatever can impact GPA. We advised our son to consider that in his decision. For the record - son did not want to go to UT (all of his older siblings did and he wanted to be different). And he is presently not at Texas A&M.