A couple of nits.
Westminster lists their endowment as $100m on their website.
Kent School awards 29% of its students needs-based financial aid. They also award merit-based aid. I suspect that 15% or more of the students get merit-based aid, and that is how you and they get the 44% number.
Kent actually gives a smaller percentage of their students needs-based aid than most peers, who offer needs-based aid to about 33-37% of their students.
@GreenIndian: Thank you!
Kent School also has one of the most beautiful campus settings in the US !
P,S, The endowment figures on page 1 were from a year ago.
We love Kent!! And we know something about financial and merit aid there. 
I agree strongly with RedSoxFan18 on the uneven relationship between endowments and aid granted.
Yes and no. There are benefits at some of the wealthiest schools that are not available or offered at other schools. I prefer not to elaborate other than to say that the financial aid extends well beyond tuition, fees, room & board at some of the wealthiest schools.
Yes, Publisher.
And there is also this. Some schools on your list of 36 or so will award much more than SSS/PFS Family Report states as a family’s need. That is to say they use money strategically to get the kids they want. Some school have more discretion than others to do this. But many do this.
@dramakid2 DH and I have heard similar from a high ranking administrator at relatively well known boarding school (sorry that I can’t name names, but its not the school my kid attends).
Interesting points raised in #24 and #25. DH and I are also interested in the endowments as a measure of resources available for all students and employees, as well as a measure of institutional health (as mentioned by @SevenDad above). Being somewhat familiar with a variety of non-profit institutions, DH likes to get a sense of other costs schools bear as they may divert more resources than one would guess from supporting the student body and employees (for example, historic buildings, while beautiful, can be money pits). Another related number to look at, which the development departments of independent schools like to publish, is the yearly amount spent per student which they then compare to tuition (tuition is usually/always? lower). These are the numbers you get front and center in the annual appeal 
(Don’t get me wrong; I think it’s important for beneficiaries of these places to support them in a manner (time, talent, treasure) and amount that is reasonable and appropriate for their circumstances).
I suppose another way to look at FA would be financial aid dollars spent per all students (not just those receiving financial aid; kind of like endowment per student), which I think could be figured out relatively easily with posted information (BTW, I’m not suggesting that you do this for us).
@GnarWhail Where are you? I think you and I have exchanged thoughts about endowments in the past.
Love the fact that some of the smaller endowed school are generous, that is truly wonderful. I benefitted from very generous FA, but the awards were very uneven across schools given the same PFS statement. These schools and there endowments are tax exempt because their purpose is to educate. Those endowments need to be used in a manner consistent with that purpose. I agree with @ChoatieMom that looking at schools that meet full demonstrated need is the best way to gauge FA. My point is that when $endowment/student reaches certain levels the school be held to a financial aid standard. For example I’d propose something like:
$500,000/student - Meet 100% of demonstrated need
$1,000,000/student - 100% need blind admission & meet 100% of demonstrated need
$2,500,000/student - No tuition for anyone
[/QUOTE]
I may have the boundaries wrong, it is a matter of degree, but take it to the extreme tell me a school with $1,000,000,000/student should be tax exempt?
There are quite a few schools with $500,000/student, a handful with nearly 1,000,000 / student. There is a school on this list that could be tuition free if the school endowment earned 1.5%.
I admit I don’t think a single prep school hits 2.5M/student but don’t get me started on what the IVies pay to the people who manage their endowment - hint it is more than they award in FA.
Can anyone share information regarding which boarding schools are heavily populated by full pay foreign students resulting in domestic students being offered substantial financial aid awards ?
Endowment funds are used for more purposes than to just fund financial aid.
The endowment annually provides income as part of the annual operating income of a school. Tuition revenue and most annual gifts also contribute to operating income. The annual operating budget is funded by this income.
The operating budget covers expenses such as faculty and administration salaries and benefits, all academic and athletic programming, maintenance of facilities, food and supplies, AND financial aid.
Wealthy schools can contribute a larger of portion of their endowment income to the operating income if they choose. And thus you might see this reflected in more faculty, better faculty salaries/benefits, more staff, somewhat richer programming and better financial aid.
However many schools with relatively small endowments ($60-100m) have sufficient income from their endowments and from tuition revenue to be able to offer very good financial aid in the range of 33% of students with average aid grants of around $42,500.
My experience is with colleges but I assume they operate similarly. Colleges do way more with their endowment and fund FA. But if you think about it schools with large endowments like we are discussing could easily fund capital improvements or deferred maintenance using these $$ but at least on the capital improvement side, they usually fundraise successfully for those projects. My DD’s school has a major construction project going on (like lots of schools) and it is entirely being done through fundraising and not by tapping the endowment.
Publisher, many schools cross-subsidize domestic students who need financial aid with full paying international students, notably from China and Korea. This has been going on since the early 1990s when schools began focusing on Korea and has accelerated since market reforms in China.
These international students also contribute to keeping schools’ average SSAT and SAT scores higher than they would be without them.
While I don’t have specific information confirming this, I would say that Kent School is indicative of this phenomenon. But they are far from alone.
@RedSoxFan18 - That’s an interesting concept regarding the conditioning of tax exempt status on some level of financial aid commitment. Sometimes we forget that the ability to accumulate large, tax-exempt fortunes is largely a function of political choice by the society.
Thank you all for contributing thoughtful responses to this thread.
An important point to note about the 40 boarding prep schools listed at the start of this thread is that all are considered to have substantial endowments. Some boarding schools not included in the initial post have endowments of less than $10 million.
Although there are almost 300 boarding schools in the US & Canada combine, only 220 belong to TABS–the Association of Boarding Schools. Among TABS member schools, many have endowments totaling less then $5 million.
Accordingly, acceptance to any of the 40 or so boarding schools listed in this thread should be viewed as an accomplishment worthy of serious consideration.
There are more than 3,000 four year colleges & universities in the US. There are less than 300 boarding schools in the US. In order to appreciate the incredible wealth of many of the boarding schools in the US, an interesting perspective is a comparison of endowment per student among colleges & universities to boarding schools.
As an example:
St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire has a per student endowment of $1,400,000. This is greater than all but 5 colleges & universities in the US. SPS would rank #6 among all US colleges & universities in terms of endowment per student.
Princeton University–$2,702,955 endowment per student (EPS)
SOKA–$2,684,472 EPS
Yale–$1,816,067
Harvard–$1,647,059
Stanford–$1,557,101
St. Paul’s School–$1,400,000
Pomona College–$1,282,825
MIT–$1,199,781
Amherst College–$1,146,034
Swarthmore College–$!,138,679
Grinnell College–$1,065,420
Williams College–$1,053,887
Franklin Olin College of Eng.–$1,036,696
Caltech–$921,522
Julliard–$916,859
Washington & Lee–$847,996
Bowdoin College–$774,616
Principia College
Rice University–$762,176
Wellesley College–$745,257
Notre Dame–$700,620
Selected Colleges & Universities EPS:
Northwestern University–$419,343
Vanderbilt University–$392,764
Columbia University–$381,956
Denison University–$363,933
Middlebury College–$361,475
Davidson College–$353,500
Brown University–$347,821
Colgate University–$315,946
Georgetown University–$115,264
Kenyon College–$114,954
St. Lawrence University–$114,902
Carnegie Mellon University–$106,552
NYU–Approx. $85,000
Adding in a few boarding schools:
St. Paul’s School–$1,400,000 Endowment Per Student #6 among all US colleges & universities
Exeter–$1,065,802 Endowment Per Student would rank at #10 among all US colleges & universities.
Groton School–$945,945 EPS would rank at #13 among all US colleges & universities.
Andover–$843,478 EPS would rank at #16 among all US colleges & universities.
Deerfield Academy–$818,461 EPS would rank at #16 as well.
Hotchkiss School–$603,333
Culver Academies–$486,420
Lawrenceville–$454,768
Choate Rosemary Hall–$428,902
I have calculated the endowment per student (EPS) for 17 of the wealthiest US boarding schools:
St. Paul’s School–$1,400,000
Exeter–$1,065,802
Groton School–$945,945
Andover–$843,478
Deerfield Academy–$818,461
Middlesex School–$637,975
St. Andrew’s–$629,032
Mercersburg Academy–$609,195
Hotchkiss School–$603,333
Peddie School–$593,345
Episcopal High School–$500,000
Culver Academies–$486,420
Lawrenceville–$454,768
Choate Rosemary Hall–$428,902
Taft School–$400,000
Loomis Chaffee–$333,333
The Hill School–$293,103