Blossom and thumper1 are correct.
There is no harm in asking if your need-based financial aid eligibility can be reevaluated, especially if you have unusual circumstances.
Yes! I had never heard of a school doing that.
Bottom line is it’s an exchange of value. My DS has stats above school A and they are throwing money at him to get there. It is valuable to that school to have a high stat kid like my son attend and so they will pay money to affiliate their school with someone like my son. The money improves their reputation.
On the other hand Stanford and Harvard and Duke want us to pay for the benefit of being affiliated with their school. There is value in having that affiliation and people with my DSs stats will pay handsomely for that affiliation. Also an exchange of value.
Bottom line is do you want to be payed for allowing a school to improve their reputation by affiliating with you, or do you want to pay for the privilege of affiliating with school to help your reputation. It’s an exchange of value for value. Cash for something that isn’t cash and is far less tangible.
Part of that decision is what’s 250k worth to you? For some people it’s not that much. It’s a lot to me.
^ You are absolutely correct for the 99.9% of applicants. Even most of the top 1% 2400, 4.0 national debate champions, however, there is that small percentage that even Harvard wants. A future Obama (who only got into Columbia as a transfer so would not have qualified then), future Neil DeGrass T (sp). NDT described his visit to Yale and I am sure most of the future undergrads were not walked around campus by Carl Sagan (or whomever I forget but it was impressive). They will pay up for those. If that is OP’s son, H will find a way to pay, maybe (or not). Obviously speculating.