Best Colleges=Best Financial Aid?

Paying for College
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<p>In an attempt to find schools offering the most generous need based aid (statistically), I have ran into a bit of a quandary. It seems that the top colleges in the U.S. consistently give the best financial aid awards. While their sticker tuition prices may be high, it seems that most students graduating from top 25 schools get off with pretty good debt standing.</p>

<p>For example, the following list is a compilation of the "51 Colleges With Best Student Financial Aid" from CBS MoneyWatch</p>

<p>Amherst College
Arizona State University
Bowdoin College
Brown University
Cal Tech
Claremont McKenna
Colby College
College of William and Mary
Columbia University
Cornell University
Dartmouth College
Davidson College
Duke University
Emory University
Georgia Tech
Harvard University
Haverford College
Indiana University
Lafayette College
Lehigh University
Michigan State University
MIT
North Carolina State
Northern Illinois U.
Northwestern University
Pomona College
Princeton University
Rice University
Stanford University
Swarthmore College
Texas A&M University
Tufts University
University of North Carolina
University of Chicago
University of Florida
University of Georgia
University of Illinois
University of Maryland
University of Michigan
University of Pennsylvania
University of Virginia
US Military Academy
US Naval Academy
Vanderbilt University
Vassar College
Washington and Lee University
Washington U. St. Louis
Wellesley College
Wesleyan University
Williams College
Yale U</p>

<p>For the most part, you might as well have titled this list "51 Colleges with Highest Selectivity" So, my question is, what schools aren't very selective but match the financial aid awards of their more exclusive counterparts? Reed College, for example gives great fin aid, but is a little forgiving in regards to selectivity and admission chances. </p>

<p>Also, if anyone could explain to me why top, private schools are shunned for their expensiveness, when they offer very generous aid, that would be great</p>

<p>Thanks</p>

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<p>most of those state universities only have great need-based aid for instate students because of state aid that is added to federal and other aid.</p>

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<p>First you have to get admitted to these schools and most have very low acceptance rates.</p>

<p>Many families don’t qualify for need based FA, even at the most generous colleges.</p>

<p>Most of the privates include loans within their FA packages.</p>

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<p>Entomom has given the reasons why most kids do not go to those schools. They are selective and do not accept most kids. Also, your family has to meet their definition of need which may not mesh with what you and your family can afford. My kids don’t qualify for need with the schools they picked. We make too much money. But we don’t have enough saved to pay $250K per kid which is what the full sticker price (cost of attendance) can end up being for these most selective schools. </p>

<p>Your list does have some of the more generous schools but it also has some state schools that would not be inexpensive if you are Out of State. Universlty of IL,at UC, , for instance, is very expensive for a state school for out of staters (not exactly cheap for instaters either), and I don’t think they are very generous with aid, especially for OOSers. </p>

<p>So you need to look get your family’s tax return and asset information and run the numbers through the institutional and FAFSA estimators to see if you even qualify for financial aid. You need to also take your academic profile and see how it measures up with the admissions info on the schools. It’s smart to cover your bases first by getting a few schools that are very likely to accept you and you know are affordable. Guaranteed scholarships at some schools for certain test scores/grades would be very helpful in this regard. Also some local schools with low costs. Once you have that covered, you can go to town and take your chances with some of these other schools where you might get merit or financial aid. </p>

<p>When you look at averages for schools, you have to understand, that you may not be in the pool to get that average aid. There may not be a single student in the school that fits that average stat. So you need to be in the upper percentiles on stats to have some chance of admissions and be absolutely one of the top students for merit money… </p>

<p>Take Georgia Tech, for example. For kids in state, it is a bargain. Relatively low sticker price and with Georgia’s HOPE scholarship, Georgians can do well. GT also has some very generous Presidential awards that are full rides. My son applied for one of them. He got into the school but didn’t get an award. It is very competitive to get one of those scholarships. Since we are Georgians, the cost of GT for us would not have been any bargain. We did not qualify for financial aid, but even if we did, GT does not guarantee to meet 100% of need and does not in fact meet everyone’s need, so the chances of getting much aid from them is quite low.</p>

<p>Harvard, with its single digit accept rate, is not particularly useful as a school that offers generous aid, which it does. Getting in is the issue there. And, again you have to meet need requirements to get the aid, which does cover higher income levels than most schools. But I have a friend who really got hit hard by Harvard when his son went there. He owns rental properties and the family lives off the net income from them. Selling them for their alleged market value is not easily doable these days, even worse when that young man was in college. Also by selling the property, it eliminates the income for it. Those properties not only were the sole source of family income, they were going to be their pensions as well. Harvard didn’t look at that way. </p>

<p>The tough part of college selection is finding a school that suits your needs and wants at an affordable price that will take you. Get one of those, and you can play the admissions lottery for the rest of you list.</p>

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<p>

There really aren’t any. Once you get out of the top tier the FA offered goes down. Think of it this way: if the FA were great everyone would want to go there. If everyone wants to go there then the scores and selectivity go up. You end up back in that top tier.</p>

<p>Reed is a different kind of case. The students who apply are very self selective. And even in that case the competition is tough. DD1 had a 34 ACT, NMF and 3.92 UWGPA and was waitlisted.</p>

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<p>^^And don’t forget that Reed is not need-blind in admissions; Reed is need-aware.</p>

<p>OP:</p>

<p>some of the colleges are your list are rather easy to get into. Arizona State, for example, accepts students with a C+ average. Now, that won’t earn any merit money, but admissions is not diffficult.</p>

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<p>Northern Illinois is a decent state university, but certainly not highly selective (middle 50% ACT range 19-24).</p>

<p>I’m surprised to see two Illinois publics on the list; I suspect that the list is based on older data, since the legislature has been cutting funding for all universities.</p>

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<p>Arizona has reasonably priced tuition and awards for in state residents. I don’t know anyone here who went or is going there who is getting a dime of financial aid. The only ones getting anything are those who are way up there in stats and are getting merit money. At one time some of the Arizona unis were offering full rides to NMFs. So overall, in terms of what they report as aid, they would be down there as very generous, but that does not mean that some kid who definitely has a good chance of being accepted to the Uof A is going to get a nice financial aid package. Not at all. It wouldn’t even make the list of schools to explore unless the kid had a great academic profile if financial aid were an issue. </p>

<p>The first step in finding affordable schools is to look close. Most of us have local state schools that are affordable. There may be some private schools that give some great sweeteners to local students too. Here in my area, Manhattan College and Iona College, for instance, though are private schools, have offered and given a lot of kids whose stats are not way up there, incentive money to attend. If you commute, you can end up going to those schools very cheaply. My son also found other such schools that might offer him merit money. The Catholic schools seem to be a good source for this. </p>

<p>Our state schools are the best deals for those who want to go away for college. You’d have to get a very nice financial aid/merit package to beat the $20K or so a year that the SUNYs currently cost. The problem with these awards is that these days, even a nice hefty award of $20K just doesn’t go that far when costs are encroaching the $60K a year mark. Very sobering to have to pay $40K a year even after getting an award of that sort.</p>

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<p>Well, bear in mind that this was just a copied list. I said most of the schools on it are known for good fin aid. But we can see the same situation across the board. As selectivity rises, so does the quality of FA. What top 10, or even top 25, school doesn’t meet 100% average aid? </p>

<p>The admissions factor is an obvious precursor to receiving the aid, but that is what I meant. Best colleges give the best aid. </p>

<p>And wow, I was surprised to here that about Reed. I mean I always heard that the academic environment there is pressurized, but with a relatively forgiving acceptance rate (40 something I believe) I would think a 34 ACT and 3.9 is guaranteed.</p>

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<p>The essay, interview and showing interest play a big role in the selection process for Reed.</p>

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<p>“I would think a 34 ACT and 3.9 is guaranteed.”</p>

<p>There are no guarantees for anyone applying to Reed, largely because GPA + test scores + rank together count for only 20% of admission criteria.</p>