<p>That is an interesting thought. I know that PLUS and private out of school loans are not reported as aid or loans. I don’t know about the unsub fed loans. </p>
<p>That’s why fin aid is also underreported for some schools. Many of the schools that do not meet need and gap in their packages do not report the loans that the families and kids may take to meet their calculated need that was unmet.</p>
<p>^^ I actually think “need blind” is a hilarious marketing concept. It simply means that yes you might get accepted with no regard to your ability to pay. What good is that to a student whose family cannot pony up the cost of admission or a large chunk of the cost of admission. It means you can say "I’ve been accepted to XYZ. Does not mean that you can afford to attend. I think it’s very important for young people to understand this. I would agree that most/many colleges are “need blind”, they just don’t turn it into a marketing message.</p>
<p>Need blind is like a encouraging you to apply for a parking license, even if you do not think you can afford it. If you are one of the few lucky ones, you can now try and find a parking spot. Admission does not give you a guarantee you a parking spot. The financial aid office controls the parking spots and they can give you the free parking, the partially paid parking, full pay parking areas etc. The financial aid office has a budget to work with and they dole out the parking spots based on their criteria. So if you do not like the parking spot, you give it up as, you cannot negotiate for another one as the school has the upper hand: many students on the wait list who will gladly take your parking spot or a worse one.</p>
<p>What many schools count on is that student once they get admission, are motivated to find every way to make it work even if the package is not what the student was hoping for. If you expected that the EFC was $20,000 and the school comes up with a EFC of $27000, you are going to try and make up the gap rather than say NO. If you are really attractive then they may negotiate, usually they will not negotiate much. </p>
<p>So, a need blind school may be better place to apply than need aware or need based school, in the sense you have a better chance of getting the parking permit as the need aware school may reject you because they think you cannot afford it. But that does not mean that your parking permit will be better than the need aware school. A need aware school may give you better aid than a need blind school.</p>
<p>Most schools are need blind. All of the open admissions schools are and many of the schools that are not selective are. The only schools that tend to be need aware in admissions are those selective schools that are trying to meet most of the need of the kids they do admit. Because they are often are in the same category and the same caliber as many of the need blind schools that do meet most of their students’ needs, the question comes up and is relevant for this category of school. It does not occur to most kids applying to local state schools whether ability to pay comes into the picture. They just hope they get enough that they can manage to go there. Need aware schools are a special category for the “elite” student.</p>