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:
- Domestic Undergraduate Need-Based Aid and Merit Aid: Excel | PDF
- 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% |
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