Well not to make this personal, but how would you consider this 'slipping through the cracks'? If your family is worth 1mm or 2mm or whatever, would you feel it's 'fair' (for lack of a better word) that you'd get a full ride? 2mm in real estate is enough to retire on, would it be 'fair' if somebody (or their children) who essentially lives off the returns on their capital gets a 'needs based' grant?
Owning land that has gone through 3 or 4 generations in the same family, while technically an "investment asset", usually isn't treated the same way from a planning perspective as, say, apartments you purchase with the intention to liquidate upon retirement. There may be a lot fewer ways to generate revenue from it, so in all reality you may barely be breaking even on upkeep. You're then forced to decide between giving your children an excellent education which will set the up well in life vs keeping the land which you have a strong emotional attachment to and wish to share with future generations.
Without getting too specific, a family farm like ours is definitely not worth $2mil, and outright selling it wouldn't cover me + siblings going to Stanford. But the key is that it's enough to borrow against -- Stanford just wants you to be physically able to pay, even if that means exorbitant loans, and they'll generally offer you enough grants to get you to the point where loans can cover the rest.
Even this 125k threshold assumes a 5k student contribution and doesn't cover the mandatory 15k in room + board for incoming freshmen. It's great PR, though, and still, props to them.
