<p>We all know HYP give good financial aid to middle class families, but there are many more colleges that claim to meet full-need. Which of these colleges are known to give good finaid package, especially in grant, to middle class applicants. Conversely, which of them are known to "gap", despite their claim? According to an USNWR article, dated 9/18/13, the following colleges claim to meet full-need:</p>
<p>Amherst College
Barnard College
Bates College
Berea College
Boston College
Bowdoin College
Brown University
Bryn Mawr College
California Institute of Technology
Carleton College
Carroll University
Claremont McKenna College
Colby College
Colgate University
College of the Holy Cross
Columbia University
Connecticut College
Cornell University
Dartmouth College
Davidson College
Duke University
Franklin and Marshall College
Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering
Georgetown University
Grinnell College
Hamilton College
Harvard University
Harvey Mudd College
Haverford College
Macalester College
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Middlebury College
Mount Holyoke College
Northwestern University
Oberlin College
Occidental College
Pomona College
Princeton University
Rice University
Scripps College
Smith College
St. Olaf College
Stanford University
Swarthmore College
Thomas Aquinas College
Trinity College
Tufts University
University of Chicago
University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill
University of Notre Dame
University of Pennsylvania
University of Richmond
University of Southern California
Vanderbilt University
Vassar College
Washington and Lee University
Washington University in St. Louis
Wellesley College
Wesleyan University
Williams College
Yale University</p>
<p>It means different things to different people, use the definition that best suits you. Anecdotally, at least until a few years ago, Stanford’s aid was not as good as HYP.</p>
<p>Each place uses its own formula, so your best bet is to run your own numbers through the Net Price Calculator at each institution’s website, and see what the results look like.</p>
<p>Agreed.,use the Net Price Calculators. Keep in mind, these schools meet full need per THEIR calculations. They determine what you can pay, and award you aid to fill in the rest. They do NOT “gap” students per these calculations. However, that doesn’t mean the school will give you what YOU think you should be awarded. They give you a full award based on what they calculate you can pay…and expect the family to pay their calculated share. Most also have a student contribution.</p>
<p>Regarding the NPCs…they will not be particularly accurate if you are self employed or own a business, parents are divorced, or if you own real estate of any kind in addition to your primary residence. </p>
<p>Another thing to remember…if you own rental properties, or your own business, some allowable deductions per the IRS are actually added back in as income. Just an FYI.</p>
<p>Something to look at is the average debt upon graduation for financial aid recipients, as well as whether the school caps the debt load they expect a student to take on. It’s important to remember that some schools meet need through loans, others through grants, yet others through a combination of the two. It makes a big difference in terms of what the student’s debt repayment profile will look like after graduation.</p>
<p>This negates any relevance that this thread could potentially have. </p>
<p>Agree w/hm1, the NPCs are going to be much more helpful than anecdotal comments. Each college uses it’s own formula and each family situation is different, members who want to get the best estimate possible will spend the time running their numbers through the NPCs.</p>
<p>Though the 568 Group of colleges say they use the same formulas, I know so many kids who applied to a number of the schools in that group and get widely varying awards. So you do need to run the NPCs which, though are estimates only, give you some idea as to what you might expect.</p>
<p>^It is still relevant for cost sensitive families who just want to have a list of meet full-need colleges to consider applying as a starting point, without going through the NPC for each. Just like we all know HYP have better package than most, if not all, others on this list, there must be other colleges on this list that are next level down. I’m really looking for a rough relative comparison, but so far none has answered my question. For example, I heard many folks complained that Emory doesn’t give as generously as Vanderbilt.</p>
<p>If all you want is to share a list, you can just link, If you want to know how, say, Emory compares to Vandy, you have to run NPCs with your set of relevant family financial details. What good is it if I say X offered us more than Y? That’s for our picture. I’m not going to post our ages, family size, income and assets and more, so you can build a chart. k?</p>
<p>Agape…you are asking an impossible question to answer. I’m not sure why you are adverse to running the NPC…unless you are self employed, own a business, are divorced, or have real estate other than your primary residence. </p>
<p>At MOST of the schools on this list, you can look at a family contribution that is approximately 1/4-1/3 of your gross annual income. In the case of the MOST generous schools HYPS, need based aid is awarded to some degree to students even with family incomes up to $180,000 a year with typical assets. The family contribution for these schools is reduced due to,their extremely well funded endowments.</p>
<p>And in my opinion, Stanford has EXTREMELY generous need based aid…and was one of the first to offer aid to families with higher incomes. They were THE first to pledge that for earners up to $100,000, costs would be 10%. That was at least six, or seven years ago. </p>
<p>Variables that affect the determination of need…some schools DO use primary home equity to some degree in their calculations. Some schools DO add back in more self employed deductions than other schools. Some schools have a higher student contribution. Some schools do not package loans for those under a certain threshold. Sme don’t package loans at all. Some include loans for all. Some schools do not look at step parent income (Princeton has a different way of dealing with remarried parents). </p>
<p>Some schools consider $100,000 to be eligible for need based aid. Some go higher. Some are lower.</p>
<p>The NPC is a good starting point. We don’t know YOUR particular situation…so the variables affecting YOU cannot be considered by us in response to your post.</p>
<p>Not asking for details. NPC does not take many circumstances into considerations. I just used Emory and Vandy as an example of what I heard and learned through discussion with some families. Interestingly, I don’t know of any finaid seeking applicant who was accepted to both Emory and Vandy and received more from Emory.</p>
<p>No reason to settle for a rough relative comparison when you can go to the NPCs and get a much better one. </p>
<p>Take a look at the post counts and posting histories of the members that have replied, they are some of the most experienced, reliable participants here on CC, particularly when it comes to FA. There’s a reason they’re all saying to run the NPCs rather than providing random examples of who got how much from where.</p>
<p>Every college is different, and you need to run their NPCs. But if any confirmation is needed I can confirm that Vandy gives really good aid… we got around 8K more than what the NPC said we would be getting and we are middle class.</p>
<p>No one can even begin to answer your question unless you give something way more concrete than “middle class”. To me, almost all middle class families at Harvard are going for extremely cheap as middle class, to me, is 50k-70k. To many on here, “middle class” is 80k-300k. </p>
<p>In the absence of a family income level, a $$ amount in assets, a $$ amount in retirement accounts it is impossible to compare private colleges. Add a divorced couple that may or may not have new partners and it’s just a crapshoot how a student might be packaged.</p>