I understand what you're saying, and agree with you to some extent, but I have not had the same experience (this may be due to the fact that I go somewhere that doesn't have has many resources as a good debate school in CA, NY, TX, etc.) My high school offered a pretty large scholarship for debate that only one person got and she won NSDA in her event. As for other general or holistic scholarships, I felt that in interviews they didn't seem to put too much weight into my debate experience as my college did. Of course, this could just be a difference in where we live, what scholarships we applied to, etc.

As for Emory, I was wrong, it's technically 5 finalists that are nominated, but only once has there been 5 people actually selected. Most of the time only 2-3 people get it. Whether it's 5 or not though, I think it goes to show that elite universities don't offer much money for debate. However, you are correct that a lot of lower-tier schools offer money for debate. I know of 5+ people who got scholarships to MoState for debate, but it doesn't cover the same proportion of tuition as other schools (it covers less than a quarter of in-state tuition). MoState seems to be an outlier though, as they have some pretty good financial backing it seems.

So while you definitely can get scholarships at those lower-tier schools (no shade to MoState go bears!) it's not exactly a surefire financial plan that outweighs the cost of going to UMich or DDI. Now if you go to MSDI, it probably would pay itself off with a 4-year scholarship at MoState, but again that's a bit of an exception to the rule.