10 Colleges that Offer the Best Financial Aid

10 Colleges that Offer the Best Financial Aid

“10 of the Colleges with the Most Financial Aid,” a recent post on the Her Campus blog, lists 10 American colleges that offer the most financial aid to the largest percentage of needy students who attend.

Well, there is no arguing with statistics. We admire this blogger for doing some research and coming up with her list, and we truly support her effort to help her readers ferret out educational bargains. Still, the link between the financial aid statistics that she has found and the true bottom-line cost of college seems a little shaky to us. (In fairness, ferreting out colleges with the lowest bottom-line costs was not the purpose of her research.) But all the colleges and universities on the list are all high-tuition institutions that are difficult to get into. Many students could potentially pay a lot less for college if they picked state universities, community colleges, or online institutions as a way to complete college at the lowest cost.

But despite those reservations on our part, let’s take a look at the 10 schools that she says offer the best financial aid packages to the most students. By the way, the statistics regarding the “average percent of financial need met” mean that if a student demonstrates that  he or she needs, say, $20,000 in aid in order to attend a school, he or she will get it . . .

1. Williams College

Tuition (both in state and out of state): $43,000
Average Financial Aid Package: $10,440
Average Percent of Need Met: 100%

2. Vassar College

Tuition (both in-state and out-of-state): $45,000
Average Financial Aid Package: $10,263
Average Percent of Need Met: 100%

3. Amherst College

Tuition (both in-state and out-of-state): $43,000
Average Financial Aid Package: $10,110
Average Percent of Need Met: 100%  

4. Pomona College

Tuition (both in-state and out-of-state): $40,000
Average Financial Aid Package: $9,259
Average Percent of Need Met: 100%

5. Bowdoin College

Tuition (both in-state and out-of-state): $ 43,000
Average Financial Aid Package: $8,867
Average Percent of Need Met: 100%

6. California Institute of Technology

Tuition (both in state and out of state): $38,000
Average Financial Aid Package: $8,373
Average Percent of Need Met: 100%  

7. Willamette University

Tuition (both in-state and out-of-state): $39,012
Average Financial Aid Package: $7,970
Average Percent of Need Met: 92%

8. Lake Forest College

Tuition (both in-state and out-of-state): $37,000
Average Financial Aid Package: $7,505
Average Percent of Need Met: 80%

9. Hollins University

Tuition (both in-state and out-of-state): $31,000
Average Financial Aid Package: $6,000
Average Percent of Need Met: 85%

10. Northeastern University

Tuition (both in-state and out-of-state): $39,000
Average Financial Aid Package (for four years): $5,696
Average Percent of Need Met: 69%

We look forward to seeing what college bargains the blogger at Her Campus Blog finds next. 

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