This article from 2016 provides interesting insight into the financial aid process at Williams College.
Here are some fascinating tidbits from the article:
- Families earning $140,000 or less pay less money to attend Williams College than to attend the University of Massachusetts.
- Families earning under $75,000 are aided without any loans at all. For other aided students, the maximum loan any student will receive is $4000 per year. The rest of the aid comes mostly in the form of grants, with a small amount from an on-campus job (with a maximum of 8-10 work hours per week).
https://magazine.williams.edu/2016/spring/feature/financial-aid-at-williams/
A couple of nice features for all students who receive financial aid at Williams include:
- Books, lab fees, art supplies, and music lessons are covered.
- Fees associated with Winter Study are also covered.
We have found that once on campus, there really aren’t any additional unforeseen costs to worry about.
Thanks for the article. This quote seems particularly important, given the constant discussions on CC about how rich kids are supposedly subsidizing poorer kids: “We spend about $100,000 per year on every student. But the ‘sticker price’—what we charge for full tuition plus room and board—totals a little more than $63,000. So even families who are paying the full comprehensive fee are receiving significant support from the college.” I believe this is true of many, and perhaps most, private institutions.
They also cover travel expenses 2 times a year, with students coming from all over the world this can become costly.
When my son was admitted to Williams for the Class of 2021, I was very impressed with the way the admins handled all aspects of welcoming my son, not just a great FA package. They knew that my son was interested in studying biology and music, so he received a personal letter from a bio faculty and a music faculty. Prior to these welcoming letters, he also received a letter from Dean of Arts and Sciences, a letter from a parent and another letter from a student. Even before he was admitted, we were surprised that a highly well known music performance instructor at Williams sent an email to my son inviting him to join her music workshop in Europe over the summer.
We really felt that, at Williams, all students would succeed with this degree of attention and care. Going back to the topic of FA, Williams was the only school out of seven that really paid a close attention to my “additional note” about our unique financial circumstances for that particular year. In their FA letter, they not only mentioned this with the assurance that the future FA would be adjusted accordingly but they also mentioned my son’s sibling by name and how that’d affect the future FA offer, as well. All around, really impressive school!!
@bresdo Could you provide a link to where they say that officially? Because if that is really true that is a game changer for me!
I don’t know if it is somewhere on there site…when we got our financial package it was included in it. Here is the exact cost breakdown they gave:
Tuition and fees: 53,550
Room and board 14,150
Books 800
Personal 1,500
Travel 1,600
My daughter is coming from Hawaii and I asked if they are going to book flight because good luck getting tickets that cheap. They told me to book and submit receipts and they would adjust it off my payment portion.
Travel amounts vary depending on where you’re from. Coming from NYC our son’s travel was $250.
Williams was named by CNBC as one of the top ten colleges with the best financial aid: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/06/the-top-10-colleges-for-financial-aid.html
Sadly not need-blind for internationals.
Financial aid covers so many things. Here is one example I just heard about that blows my mind:
During Winter Study (a month-long mini-term in January), skiing is being offered through the physical education department. Williams is covering all the costs for a financial aid student.
If you are paying full tuition, Williams costs a lot. But if you qualify for financial aid, they really take care of you and make sure you are not excluded from anything that is happening for other students on campus.
“Families earning $140,000 or less pay less money to attend Williams College than to attend the University of Massachusetts”
They consider your assets in addition to your income.
Apparently given sufficient assets some families will be full pay even with income way, way under $140,000 per year.
^ see article link posted in original post #1:
In terms of assets, as per the article:
- Retirement plans are excluded from consideration.
- Other funds are assessed at 5%. So if you have $100,000 saved in the bank, you will be asked to pay $5000 of that a year.
- Home equity is capped because they recognize that, in some areas, “what people’s houses are worth can become quite inflated relative to their level of income and their level of actual liquid assets and ability to contribute.”