Hungry for the brightest students, many of the country's stronger universities are actively discounting tuition  .And it's the high achievers, rather than the needy students, who are getting a good chunk of the money.The practice is remarkably widespread, reaching almost all but the 30 or so Ivy and other top colleges that forbid good grades-based financial aid.Schools are also becoming more aggressive in raising their discounts.At the DePauw University Website, enter an SAT or ACT score, grade point average and class rank, and a computer program immediately tells you what kind of "award".Only "the real unlucky" pay full price any more. About 76% of first-year students got some form of discount this year at 331 private schools.Average award per student: $7,000.At small schools with tuition under about $20,000, the average discount is even higher, with some schools returning over half their tuition. Carnegie Mellon even tells students it will "negotiate " and perhaps match financial-aid packages if kids are offered bigger awards at other schools.Much as banks and insurers offer special rates to their best customers, schools are giving the biggest breaks to their top students.Public four-year colleges, too, are offering discounts. The flip side of big discounts is that less money is available to improve academic programs and keep school infrastructure   up to date.Universities that have sharply increased their tuition discount rates have seen graduation rates fall, and that's true even among highly selective schools.They get the students in the door, but don't have the services to keep them. This passage mainly talks about   _  .
the great benefit of offering lower tuition college tuition discounts in popularity the top students in need of tuition discounts reducing graduation rates due to big discounts