List of Colleges That Meet 100% of Financial Need

If your family will need to depend on financial aid to attend college, your best bet is to find a school that will offer an excellent financial aid package to your child.

A great way to assess the generosity of any school is to look at the percentage of financial need it typically meets for its students.

Teenagers, who earn acceptances into schools that meets 100% of need, essentially win the educational equivalent of the lottery.

 Colleges and Universities That Meet 100% of Need

To make the search easier, here are the schools that I know of that meet 100% of financial need for all or most of its students. If you are aware of others, please let me know.

Also on the list I included schools, which I boldfaced, that meet at least 94% of need for the majority of its students.

What you’ll notice about the above list is that the schools are highly selective. Many of these schools can provide 100% of need because they are wealthier with bigger endowments than their peers, but also because the majority of students who attend these schools are typically high income. With the wealthy children paying the sticker price or getting a modest merit scholarship, this generates more money for financial aid.

How Percentage of Need Met Works…

Let’s say the financial aid formula says your family can afford to pay $15,000 for one year of college. (That’s represented by your Expected Family Contribution.) Your child is lucky and gets into a $50,000 school that promises to meet 100% of its students’ financial need.  That means the school will provide $35,000 in aid.

Schools will look for outside help first to build that $35,000 package. If the child qualifies for the federal Pell Grant for low-income students and an applicable state grant, that will be put into the package first. Nearly all schools also put in a federal Stafford Loan, which for freshman is $5,500. After that the school would kick in its own institutional money.

In this case, let’s assume the child doesn’t qualify for any state of federal grants at a school that meets 100% of need.

$50,000 Cost of Attendance

Minus            $15,000 Expected Family Contribution

Aid                 $35,000

After the Stafford Loan is subtracted, the family would get nearly $30,000 in grants/scholarships (free money) to attend this school. Some of the most elite schools won’t put in a Stafford Loan.

In contrast, the majority of schools in this country would “gap” a child. A school might provide $10,000 or $15,000 or $20,000 or even $0 dollars to meet this child’s need.

Bottom Line:

If your family will need significant financial aid, it’s important that your child be the best student possible so that he or she will be more likely to qualify for the caliber of schools that are generous.