Thursday, October 31, 2013

List of Colleges That Meet 100% of Financial Need

If your family will need to depend on financial aid to attend college, your best bet is to find a school that will offer an excellent financial aid package to your child.
A great way to assess the generosity of any school is to look at the percentage of financial need it typically meets for its students.
Teenagers, who earn acceptances into schools that meets 100% of need, essentially win the educational equivalent of the lottery.

 Colleges and Universities That Meet 100% of Need

To make the search easier, here are the schools that I know of that meet 100% of financial need for all or most of its students. If you are aware of others, please let me know.
Also on the list I included schools, which I boldfaced, that meet at least 94% of need for the majority of its students.
  1. Amherst College (MA)
  2. Barnard College (NY)
  3. Bates College (ME)
  4. Boston College (MA)
  5. Brown University (RI)
  6. Bryn Mawr College (PA)
  7. Bowdoin College (ME)
  8. Bucknell University (PA)
  9. California Institute of Technology
  10. Carleton College (MN)
  11. Claremont McKenna College (CA)
  12. Clark University (MA)
  13. Colby College (ME)
  14. Colgate University (NY)
  15. College of the Holy Cross (MA)
  16. College of Wooster (OH)
  17. Colorado College (CO)
  18. Columbia University (NY)
  19. Connecticut College (CT)
  20. Cornell University (NY)
  21. Davidson College (NC)
  22. Denison University (OH)
  23. Dickinson College (PA)
  24. Duke University (NC)
  25. Dartmouth College (NH)
  26. Emory University (GA)
  27. Franklin W. Olin College
  28. Georgetown University (DC)
  29. Gettysburg College (PA)
  30. Grinnell College (IA)
  31. Hamilton College (NY)
  32. Harvey Mudd College (CA)
  33. Haverford College (PA)
  34. Harvard University (MA)
  35. Johns Hopkins University (MD)
  36. Kenyon College (OH)
  37. Lafayette College (PA)
  38. Lehigh University (PA)
  39. Macalester College (MN)
  40. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MA)
  41. Middlebury College (VT)
  42. Mount Holyoke College (MA)
  43. Northwestern University (IL)
  44. Oberlin College (OH)
  45. Occidental College (CA)
  46. Pitzer College (CA)
  47. Pomona College (CA)
  48. Princeton University (NJ)
  49. Reed College (OR)
  50. Rice University (TX)
  51. Saint John’s College (NM)
  52. Saint Olaf College (MN)
  53. Scripps College (CA)
  54. Sewanee: The University of the South (TN)
  55. Smith College (MA)
  56. Stanford University (CA)
  57. Swarthmore College (NY)
  58. Thomas Aquinas College (CA)
  59. Trinity College (CT)
  60. Tufts University (MA)
  61. Tulane University (LA)
  62. Union College (NY)
  63. University of Chicago (IL)
  64. University of Notre Dame (IN)
  65. University of Pennsylvania (PA)
  66. University of Richmond (VA)
  67. University of Rochester (NY)
  68. University of Southern California
  69. Vanderbilt University (TN)
  70. Vassar College (NY)
  71. Wabash College (IN)
  72. Wake Forest University (NC)
  73. Washington and Lee University (VA)
  74. Washington University, St. Louis, (MO)
  75. Wellesley College (MA)
  76. Wesleyan University (MA)
  77. Williams College (MA)
  78. Wheaton College (MA)
  79. Yale University (CT)
What you’ll notice about the above list is that the schools are highly selective. Many of these schools can provide 100% of need because they are wealthier with bigger endowments than their peers, but also because the majority of students who attend these schools are typically high income. With the wealthy children paying the sticker price or getting a modest merit scholarship, this generates more money for financial aid.

How Percentage of Need Met Works…

Let’s say the financial aid formula says your family can afford to pay $15,000 for one year of college. (That’s represented by your Expected Family Contribution.) Your child is lucky and gets into a $50,000 school that promises to meet 100% of its students’ financial need.  That means the school will provide $35,000 in aid.
Schools will look for outside help first to build that $35,000 package. If the child qualifies for the federal Pell Grant for low-income students and an applicable state grant, that will be put into the package first. Nearly all schools also put in a federal Stafford Loan, which for freshman is $5,500. After that the school would kick in its own institutional money.
In this case, let’s assume the child doesn’t qualify for any state of federal grants at a school that meets 100% of need.
$50,000 Cost of Attendance
Minus            $15,000 Expected Family Contribution
Aid                 $35,000
After the Stafford Loan is subtracted, the family would get nearly $30,000 in grants/scholarships (free money) to attend this school. Some of the most elite schools won’t put in a Stafford Loan.
In contrast, the majority of schools in this country would “gap” a child. A school might provide $10,000 or $15,000 or $20,000 or even $0 dollars to meet this child’s need.

Bottom Line:

If your family will need significant financial aid, it’s important that your child be the best student possible so that he or she will be more likely to qualify for the caliber of schools that are generous.
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