Also, any high schooler in Georgia who graduates with at least a 3.0 GPA gets 4 years worth of tuition to an in-state university (including Georgia Tech) as long as they hold that GPA through college[2]. The University of Alabama has something similar as well. There are other optiosn which base the tuition scholarships on ACT scores [3]. Here are 26 schools with achievement-based and 15 schools with need-based scholarships [4] (There's starting to be some overlap in my lists)
These don't all include the total cost (housing and food), but there are other grants and scholarships that could help with that. I'm sure part of the problem is making kids aware of these opportunities. I can see how, if they don't have good guidance counselors, they may just assume nothing like them exists. It would be interesting to see some statistics on how many students take advantage of these opportunities. (And just to be clear, I'm not implying that we can't improve the situation, only that people often underestimate the amount of help that is available)
[1] http://affordableschools.net/20-tuition-free-colleges/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HOPE_Scholarship
[3] http://panthersfutures.weebly.com/colleges-with-free-tuition...
[4] http://www.advantageedu.com/blog/2008/100-free-college-rides...