For those that seem to be confused, schools can't just arbitrarily decide to pay more than the maximum that has been established for their school. As part of federal scholarship guidelines (used for various federal student aid programs), schools have to submit reports to the government on what the total cost of attendance is. This federally mandated guideline is essentially the maximum schools can pay. They can certainly choose to pay less, which some of these big schools are doing. I came across an article that estimates what various schools cost of attendance numbers are. Based on what various schools are paying, it appears he did a fairly good job figuring out the cost of attendance for most schools.

The fact that schools are limited by cost of attendance is what will, at least until the rules are changed, keep this from becoming an arms race. i.e. Bama deciding to pay $15k as COA