Just 46 colleges say they meet the full financial needs of all of their students with aid and admit students solely on qualifications, without considering how much aid the student needs. There are some caveats: Each of these schools calculates an applicant's need for financial aid differently. In addition, these schools typically apply these generous policies only to U.S. citizens who are admitted by April 15. (Many of these schools reject or offer less aid to all but the most outstanding needy international and wait-listed applicants.)
What makes these colleges unusual? Public colleges, for example, are similarly "need-blind" and admit students solely based on their qualifications. However, all but the three public colleges on this list say they can't afford to provide all students with all the financial aid they need.
Some other private colleges have generous "meet full needs" financial aid policies but say they sometimes do reject qualified students who need more aid than the college can afford.
As the chart below shows, many "need-blind" colleges with generous-sounding aid policies still end up enrolling very few low-income students.
[Related story: Do Colleges Discriminate Against Aid Applicants?]
Still, this list can help low- and middle-income students identify colleges that are more likely to provide sufficient financial aid.
Some of the generous but "need-aware" schools actually enroll more low-income students than the schools on this list that claim to be "need blind."
[Related story: More Lists and Tools for Finding Generous or Low-Cost Schools]
Generous colleges that say they don't consider a student's financial need when deciding on admissions
| College | State | % of students receiving Pell Grants in 2007-08* | Acceptance Rate |
Yield (% of all admitted students who enroll) | % of fall 2008 freshmen in top tenth of their high school graduating class |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Salem College | NC | 49% | 59% | 47% | 36% |
| Adrian College | MI | 30% | 58% | 22% | 24% |
| SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry | NY | 30% | 48% | 41% | 25% |
| Thomas Aquinas College | CA | 20% | 64% | 69% | 75% |
| Amherst College | MA | 18% | 15% | 38% | 79% |
| Wabash College | IN | 18% | 49% | 38% | 31% |
| Barnard College | NY | 18% | 29% | 47% | 74% |
| Columbia University | NY | 17% | 10% | 60% | 94% |
| Williams College | MA | 15% | 17% | 42% | 87% |
| Massachusetts Institute of Technology | MA | 15% | 12% | 66% | 97% |
| University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill | NC | 15% | 34% | 53% | 79% |
| Dartmouth College | NH | 15% | 13% | 49% | 90% |
| Harvard University | MA | 14% | 8% | 76% | 95% |
| Wellesley College | MA | 14% | 36% | 41% | 76% |
| Cornell University | NY | 14% | 21% | 46% | 88% |
| Emory University | GA | 14% | 27% | 28% | 88% |
| Stanford University | CA | 13% | 9% | 71% | 92% |
| Bowdoin College | ME | 13% | 19% | 44% | 82% |
| University of Chicago | IL | 13% | 28% | 38% | 86% |
| Pomona College | CA | 13% | 16% | 39% | 86% |
| Harvey Mudd College | CA | 13% | 31% | 26% | 95% |
| College of the Holy Cross | MA | 12% | 34% | 30% | 61% |
| Grinnell College | IA | 12% | 43% | 34% | 64% |
| St. Olaf College | MN | 12% | 59% | 35% | 59% |
| Wesleyan University | CT | 12% | 27% | 32% | 65% |
| Brown University | RI | 12% | 14% | 55% | 93% |
| Vanderbilt University | TN | 12% | 25% | 37% | 84% |
| Swarthmore College | PA | 12% | 16% | 39% | 87% |
| California Institute of Technology | CA | 12% | 17% | 34% | 97% |
| Haverford College | PA | 11% | 27% | 37% | 91% |
| Hamilton College | NY | 11% | 28% | 32% | 76% |
| Claremont McKenna College | CA | 11% | 19% | 40% | 85% |
| Boston College | MA | 11% | 26% | 27% | 80% |
| University of Richmond | VA | 11% | 32% | 29% | 58% |
| Rice University | TX | 11% | 23% | 35% | 85% |
| University of Pennsylvania | PA | 11% | 17% | 63% | 99% |
| Vassar College | NY | 11% | 25% | 35% | 70% |
| Northwestern University | IL | 10% | 26% | 32% | 85% |
| Duke University | NC | 10% | 22% | 40% | 90% |
| Georgetown University | DC | 10% | 19% | 45% | 93% |
| Princeton University | NJ | 10% | 10% | 59% | 97% |
| Yale University | CT | 10% | 9% | 68% | 97% |
| Middlebury College | VT | 10% | 17% | 44% | 86% |
| University of Notre Dame | IN | 9% | 27% | 54% | 87% |
| University of Virginia | VA | 8% | 37% | 48% | 88% |
| Davidson College | NC | 7% | 26% | 43% | 81% |
| Average | 14% | 27% | 44% | 79% | |
| * Generally awarded to students from families earning less than about $45,000/year | |||||
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John Smith (Anonymous) of NY 2:56PM March 31, 2010
LuLu of GA 5:26PM March 24, 2010
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