The vast majority of colleges are need blind for U.S. citizens.
Perhaps the OP will clarify what type of financial aid he or she is looking for…need based or merit aid…or both.
And hopefully they have an annual college cost budget in mind.
That is not how paying for famous undergraduate colleges with low admission rates works.
This view can be so damaging. I had alot to learn, too, when our eldest applied to college, and it seems your husband does, too. The sooner the better, bc, it is very hard for a high achieving student to be denied admission, or, to be admitted but the parents cannot afford.
In our case, it took time to investigate net price calculators to learn which colleges were in or out of budget.
As others have said, you will need to see if you are considered a full pay family and then decide if you are willing to pay.
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Or you will need to set an annual budget and then find colleges that come in at your price point.
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Many/most PhD grad school programs are funded (even at the Ivies) but at the undergrad level the Ivies do not offer any merit-based scholarships. So your husband’s experience as a grad student is irrelevant to your child’s undergraduate situation.
The ivies (and a few other colleges) do offer very generous need-based aid , depending on their assessment of your family’s financial situation. They determine this based on your filling out the FAFSA and CSS profile forms. You can get an estimate of what your need based aid will be at each college by going to each college’s net price calculator web page. Each college does this differently so you need to check each one individually.
Lots of schools offer merit awards that do not look at your financial situation, but that is not true of the Ivies, Stanford, MIT, or other colleges that already attract more highly-qualified students than they can accept. The schools that offer merit are doing so to attract kids with higher academic grades and scores who might not otherwise apply to that college. The ivies don’t have that need.
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Also, re: merit scholarships, for some colleges all students are automatically considered (like your husband says) and for others the student has to apply, often by writing additional essays.
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Or by completing a scholarship application
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Good point!
For the last few years Oberlin has given every admitted student a $10K discount. Some receive more merit and/or need based aid in top of that. Oberlin is continuing the $10K discount for HS Class of 2024.
So why not just reduce tuition by 10K?
Feels like a used-car dealership scheme?
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I asked this b4 as less pedigree schools have cut their tuitions to real world values in order to generate more revenue, sometimes to survive.
Most felt opposite - there’s an allure of quality or exclusivity if your list price is higher.
I don’t necessarily agree but the preponderance of comments backed that vs simply pricing real world.
My analogy was if I have a house budget of $500k, I’m not looking at $600k. They’re not in the consideration set. Others said - but you could get it there.
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Right - I suspect that’s the motivation, which for ME would be a turn-off. I realize, objectively at the end the dollars are the same, but subjectively I still get a negative vibe when my intelligence is insulted by someone trying to “sell” me.
Somehow my “radar” goes up automatically, looking for other schemes I didn’t catch where they might oversell.
Even for my (in that sense cynical) daughter, it would push such a college lower on her list, for being so obvious in their disguise.
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Just to be clear for OP if they make it back - Oberlin offers merit aid.
So this isn’t a case of going to Georgetown or Cornell etc and expecting free money if you’re a full pay family.
The OP asked a general question, so let’s move on from the specific case of Oberlin.
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Grad school is a totally different ball game. It is typical for students (at least in Ph.D. programs) to get support. For undergrads, it depends first on need, and in many schools on qualifications for merit.
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I’m really glad I ask, I have clearer understanding about merit vs scholarship, undergrad vs grad level.
We’re at the beginning of this process. My husband and I are going to put a list of colleges and I’ll look into each to create cost basis. This is going to be an interesting journey 
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