<p>breakdown in FA pkgs? I see from collegeboard's site it reports avg pct of FA need met. But theoretically, that cd be all loans which wd not be that desirable.</p>
<p>You can find that information in the Common Data Set for each school, or on collegedata.com.</p>
<p>If you are interested in particular schools, you can also run their Net Price Calculators to get a more personalized estimate of the aid breakdown.</p>
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<p>True, and the other main problem is that it is an average, and unless you have an ‘average’ financial situation (whatever that is ;)), it won’t be accurate for you. About the only thing it will tell you is relative generosity of FA packages compared to other schools. </p>
<p>I think it’s much more helpful to run the NPC for schools. IIRC, on the CB site, you can enter your data once and run NPCs for several schools.</p>
<p>College Navigator has information on average federal loans and non-federal loans. The non-federal information can be an indicator of the school’s generosity. If a high percentage of students are taking out non-federal loans combined with a high average, chances are the school isn’t doing a great job of meeting need. </p>
<p>It also provides information on institutional grants or scholarships. However, these are not split out by financial need so you can’t tell how much are merit based. As mentioned above, you’ll have to look on the common data set.</p>
<p>thanks for the info. I assume that googling college navigator will get me this tool.</p>
<p>I was , for now , looking at colleges that pay on avg 100 pct of financial need and then I understood that it cd theoretically be 100 pct loans to accomplish this. </p>
<p>So the NPC will yield the expected loans and grants mix for our situation?</p>
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<p>If that’s your concern, you can start here, with the colleges that claim to meet 100% of need without loans:</p>
<p>[Project</a> on Student Debt: Financial Aid Pledges](<a href=“http://projectonstudentdebt.org/pc_institution.php]Project”>http://projectonstudentdebt.org/pc_institution.php)</p>
<p>Many of them have income cutoffs, so their guarantee applies only to the lowest income students, but that’s all spelled out on the website. I’d just follow up with the colleges to be sure . . . the website is a couple of years old, and things change.</p>
<p>thanks, all.</p>
<p>College Data is an excellent source. Here is the page for NYU: [New</a> York University Tuition, Costs and Financial Aid - CollegeData College Profile](<a href=“http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg03_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=436]New”>http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg03_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=436) You can look up the same for just about any college.</p>