<p>I have heard some scary facts about Brown not being as open to people who need financial aid because they have such a weak endowment - what do you think?</p>
<p>Brown is now need blind. They also meet 100% of need. They are the last ivy to be be in those categories. Their packages are not as rich over all as Harvard's, for instance, but I have seen kids get more from Brown than a number of other schools including UPenn, Cornell, Yale.</p>
<p>There is some truth to Brown having weaker FA than peer schools. For instance, they are the only Ivy to be need aware for transfer students. From our personal experience, they were way below HYP for freshman FA, but the same as Amherst and others.</p>
<p>brown has one of the highest per student financial aid budget in the united states, higher than several of the other ivies. they are also among the select few schools to eliminate all loans for students with family income below $100k
<a href="http://financialaid.brown.edu/%5B/url%5D">http://financialaid.brown.edu/</a></p>
<p>Brown has eliminated the parental contribution for families whose income is below $60,000. Also, they eliminated loans totally for families with <$100,000 and limited it in graduated steps above that. It is true that their endowment is lower, but so is their graduate enrollment, where, typically, a lot of endowment $ goes. I would say that for US residents/citizens and for RD/ED applicants, Brown is just fine. They have been very good to us.</p>
<p>The title of your post, at the least, is pretty much not true.</p>
<p>My son's initial FA pkg was lower than Yale but Brown took another look and improved upon the initial offer. We were wondering about subsequent years and were happy to see the new FA policy implemented which eliminates loans to many students... I've heard those FA stories and wonder if perhaps people are just repeating old rumors. Don't be afraid to apply. See what happens.</p>
<p>maybe in the early 90s or something but not now... trying to attract more low income students (like all the other top privates) is the in thing to do</p>