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Best and Worst Colleges for Meeting Demonstrated Financial Need

Posted on October 7, 2017 by Craig Meister Leave a Comment

To wrap our financial aid week, we turn again to some extremely valuable data meticulously compiled by independent educational consultants Jennie Kent and Jeff Levy.  In recent years the two consultants have put out annual lists, two of which deal with financial aid stats at American colleges and universities:

  1. Domestic Undergraduate Need-Based Aid and Merit Aid: Excel | PDF
  2. Financial Aid for Nonresident Alien Undergraduates: Excel | PDF

Today we delve a bit deeper into analyzing one statistic in particular: the percentage of demonstrated need met by colleges across the U.S.A. Demonstrated need is a loaded term. It does not translate into what families think they can pay for college each year; it instead is defined as the difference between total college costs and the family’s ability to pay – as deemed by the college (and whatever formula it uses to determined family need).

With this mind, here are the the bottom 25 colleges in terms of meeting demonstrated need for domestic students (percentages indicate percent of need met for all undergraduates):

U. of Colorado – Colorado Springs 20%
Ohio Northern University 23%
Brigham Young University3 33%
Missouri U. of Sci. and Tech. 35%
SUNY – Geneseo 41%
James Madison University 43%
U. of Cincinnati 44%
Adelphi University 45%
Auburn University 45%
U. of Wisconsin – Milwaukee 45%
San Francsico Cons. of Music 46%
Eastern Michigan University 47%
Virginia Commonwealth U. 48%
Salisbury University 48%
U. of Mary Washington 49%
Biola University 50%
SUNY – Buffalo 50%
Utica College 51%
U. of Colorado – Denver 51%
California Poly – Pomona 51%
New Jersey Instt of Technology 52%
Georgia Inst. of Technology 52%
U. of Pittsburgh 52%

Next, a better list: the top schools for meeting demonstrated need – a sixty-way tie for first between all schools that meet 100% of domestic students’ demonstrated financial need:

Amherst College 100%
Barnard College 100%
Bates College 100%
Boston College 100%
Bowdoin College 100%
Brown University 100%
Bryn Mawr College 100%
California Institute of Technology 100%
Carleton College 100%
Claremont McKenna College 100%
Colgate University 100%
College of the Holy Cross 100%
Colorado College 100%
Connecticut College 100%
Cornell University 100%
Dartmouth College 100%
Davidson College 100%
Duke University 100%
Franklin & Marshall College 100%
Georgetown University 100%
Grinnell College 100%
Hamilton College 100%
Harvey Mudd College 100%
Haverford College 100%
Kenyon College 100%
Lafayette College 100%
Macalaster College 100%
Massachusetts Inst of Tech. 100%
Middlebury College 100%
Mount Holyoke College 100%
Northwestern University 100%
Oberlin Coll. and Conservatory 100%
Occidental College 100%
Pitzer College 100%
Pomona College 100%
Princeton University 100%
Reed College 100%
Rice University 100%
Scripps College 100%
Smith College 100%
Stanford University 100%
Swarthmore College 100%
Trinity College 100%
Tufts University 100%
Union College 100%
U. of North Carolina – Chapel Hill 100%
U. of Notre Dame 100%
U. of Pennsylvania 100%
U. of Richmond 100%
U. of Southern California 100%
U. of Virginia 100%
Vanderbilt University 100%
Vassar College 100%
Wake Forest University 100%
Washington & Lee University 100%
Washington U. in St. Louis 100%
Wellesley College 100%
Wesleyan University 100%
Williams College 100%
Yale University 100%

About Craig Meister

Craig Meister is a college admissions expert who, for nineteen years, has had the great fortune of providing personalized post-secondary guidance to students and families from around the world.

Filed Under: Advice & Analysis, Financial Aid

Related posts:

Admissions and Financial Aid Statistics to Keep Close at Hand | UPDATED Demonstrated Interest: Ten Ways to Connect with Colleges Start Applying for Financial Aid Today with FAFSA and CSS Profile Want to Fix Financial Aid?

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