<p>Spot on, [66</a> colleges claim to meet full need.](<a href=“http://www.usnews.com/education/articles/2010/02/18/colleges-that-claim-to-meet-the-full-financial-needs-of-students]66 ”>'No-loan' Financial Aid Colleges: What to Know )</p>
<p>Keep in mind, however, that all of them have their own methods of calculating what “need” is and that the vast majority of them include loans in “meeting full need.”</p>
<p>From the article.</p>
<p>
But students should beware: The schools have varying definitions of need. Some of the schools provide enough grants to make up the difference between the family’s federal expected family contribution and the school’s cost of attendance. Others calculate their own (often higher) EFC and still leave a gap of several thousand dollars to be covered by student loans and part-time jobs.</p>
<p>In some cases, these gaps are larger than the $6,500 or so counselors say most freshmen can reasonably handle with federal Stafford loans and a combination of school-year part-time work and summer full-time jobs.
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<p>From the first comment.</p>
<p>
Keynon claims to cover 100 percent of demonstrated financial need. However, they use the Institutional method of calculating need versus the Federal. In our case this was a HUGE gap. Using the federal method our contribution would have been around $12,000 however based on the institutional method our contribution was $47,000!!
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<p>From the third comment:</p>
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I honestly think Chapman should be taken off this list. My daughter applied, and our EFC was less than 1000. That means we are pretty low income. Chapman is posting COA of about $53,000, and offered $42,000 in aid. That left an additional $11,000 unmet need, and the aid package itself included over $10,000 in loans plus $3,000 work study. They said that they might be able to squeeze out another small amount of aid, but the only other solution would be more loans. So, their solution to “meet all need” is over $20,000 in loans a year? Get real!!!
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<p>So you see, there’s no objective “meeting full need.” Any school can claim to meet full need, as they are allowed to calculate need however they like, and meet it with interest-bearing loans.</p>