Anecdotal stories are not evidence of anything. That said, if you look at the actual university reports, the average merit award to incoming freshman has decreased 9% over the last five years but the numbers of freshman receiving merit aid went up 53% and total institutional funding of merit scholarships went up. The average SAT score is up about 80 points over that period too with the percentage of students with 1400+ scores nearly doubling. So while there may be a slight decrease in individual award amounts, the number of awards being doled out is apparently substantially higher, but there appears to also be substantially increased competition for the awards.