Colleges that Meet 100% of Financial Need Depending on How You Define Need

Probably the biggest shock families experience as they consider their college options is finding out how much they’re expected to pay for college. But I think a close second would be how few colleges are actually able to meet the family’s admittedly flawed calculated need. According to CollegeData.com, only 80 colleges and universities claim to meet 100% of a student’s financial need.

If a family is able to show financial need, good luck in finding a school that will actually cover it.

And ultimately, they aren’t very likely to get into one of these select few because, well, most of them are one of the select few. Half of the colleges have acceptance rates of 20% or less. Only three are over 50%. Not surprising, only eight of the schools weren’t ranked in the top 50 for US News Best College Rankings for National Universities or Liberal Arts Colleges.

You just can’t help but think, “wow, prestigious and generous too, no wonder they’re such great schools!”

Actually, I have to admit, I can help myself.

What meeting 100% of need looks like

Why? Because of the 75 schools with 500 or more full-time undergraduates, 38 had an average net price after gift aid of over $8,000 for families with incomes of $30,000 or less. Stanford and Duke don’t report any average for this category. Only 17 had an average of less than $5,000 for this category.

I use $8,000 since virtually all students will qualify for the $5,500 Direct Federal Student loan. When you add it the mandatory student contribution many of the schools require, I can see where an $8,000 average net price is reasonable. However, we are talking about the lowest income category. I’m sure these kids have plenty of expenses that won’t fall under the Total Cost of Attendance which is why I mentioned the number under $5,000 as well.

There are 221 other colleges and universities that have an average net price of $8,000 or less for the lowest income category but only 38 among the 75 schools claiming to meet 100% of need. Does that sound like meeting full need to you?

Colleges get to define demonstrated need

Chances are that most of the schools claiming to meet 100% of need are using their own special definition of demonstrated need since 69 require students to submit the PROFILE as part of their financial aid application. That’s the financial aid application that wants to know your home equity which the FAFSA doesn’t and maybe the year and make of the car you’re driving. Of those using the PROFILE, 65 also require the Non-custodial supplement. It’s their money, they get to decide how to distribute it.

Furthermore, the PROFILE is the form that low-income students don’t find out if they qualify for the fee waiver until after they submit their application. Maybe that’s why there are so few freshman receiving Pell Grants at these schools. In fact, at least half of the schools wouldn’t meet the Education Trust’s proposed bottom-line standards for the minimum percentage of freshman with Pell Grants.

It’s really about priorities

Now I know that some would argue that colleges simply can’t admit more poor students if they’re going to meet 100% of financial need, no matter how they may decide to define it. Well then, how about we just compare these elite schools among themselves? And let’s avoid the entire income category issues. Let’s take a look at the percentage of freshman receiving Pell Grants compared to the average endowment per student (see the list below.)

Wake Forest University and Bates College are tied for the second lowest percentage of freshman receiving Pell Grants at 8% each. Bates College has an average endowment per student of $176,597 and Wake Forest’s is $157,364.  Southern University at New Orleans has the highest percentage of freshman with Pell Grants at 90% and an average endowment per student of only $1,461.

Southern University at New Orleans too much of an unknown school for you to use for comparisons? Then how about looking at the seven colleges were 18% of freshman are receiving Pell Grants? Three of the colleges have average endowments of less than $200,000 per student. Two of them, Harvard and Stanford, have endowments of over $1,000,000 per student. Maybe they should visit the other schools and learn something about doing more with less.

College	% Pell Grant	Average Endowment per Student
Barnard College	18	$129,250
University of Southern California	18	$138,068
Franklin and Marshall College	18	$152,501
Wesleyan University	18	$307,423
Columbia University	18	$365,083
Smith College	18	$611,178
Harvard University	18	$1,422,130
Stanford University	18	$1,496,715

They aren’t meeting need if you have to pay it back

One last thing to know about colleges claiming to meet 100% need. They aren’t reporting this to the federal government. It’s information that is collected as part of the Common Data Set (CDS). Publishers like US News use the CDS information to create their rankings and college search websites.

The reason I’m telling you this is because the CDS does not use the same definitions as required by the federal government. The government defines average net price as the amount families pay after gift aid. It doesn’t include any loans or work study funds.

However, the CDS definition allows colleges to count subsidized loans as meeting need. Even though it’s only the interest that the government is subsidizing, the schools get to claim the entire amount in their calculations. So you really need to check with the individual schools to find out if it’s using loans as part of the financial aid award to meet 100% of need.

Now you know why this is a list of colleges as those that “claim” to meet 100% of need and why I’m not necessarily impressed with their generosity. You can find information on all of these colleges and more in the DIY College Rankings Spreadsheet.

Colleges that Meet 100% of Financial Need
(Self-Reported through the Common Data Set)

Name	Type	State	Full-time Undergraduates	% Freshman Receiving Pell Grants (18-19)
California Institute of Technology	Private	CA	938	12
Claremont McKenna College	Private	CA	1,343	19
Harvey Mudd College	Private	CA	895	14
Occidental College	Private	CA	1,965	20
Pitzer College	Private	CA	1,064	10
Pomona College	Private	CA	1,621	20
Scripps College	Private	CA	1,078	11
Stanford University	Private	CA	6,996	18
University of Southern California	Private	CA	19,537	18
Colorado College	Private	CO	2,098	12
Connecticut College	Private	CT	1,824	16
Trinity College	Private	CT	2,129	11
Wesleyan University	Private	CT	2,927	18
Yale University	Private	CT	6,092	20
Georgetown University	Private	DC	7,062	14
Howard University	Private	DC	6,265	45
Emory University	Private	GA	7,047	20
Northwestern University	Private	IL	8,248	21
University of Chicago	Private	IL	6,822	11
University of Notre Dame	Private	IN	8,732	10
Grinnell College	Private	IA	1,698	22
Southern University at New Orleans	Public	LA	1,383	90
Bates College	Private	ME	1,820	9
Bowdoin College	Private	ME	1,835	16
Colby College	Private	ME	2,003	14
Johns Hopkins University	Private	MD	5,756	16
Amherst College	Private	MA	1,839	30
Babson College	Private	MA	2,386	12
Boston College	Private	MA	9,703	13
College of the Holy Cross	Private	MA	2,933	14
Harvard University	Private	MA	7,145	18
Massachusetts Institute of Technology	Private	MA	4,485	19
Mount Holyoke College	Private	MA	2,146	16
Northeastern University	Private	MA	14,202	11
Smith College	Private	MA	2,531	18
Tufts University	Private	MA	5,730	11
Wellesley College	Private	MA	2,393	23
Williams College	Private	MA	2,052	20
Carleton College	Private	MN	2,094	13
Macalester College	Private	MN	2,077	19
St Olaf College	Private	MN	3,041	20
Washington University in St Louis	Private	MO	7,118	14
Dartmouth College	Private	NH	4,414	15
Princeton University	Private	NJ	5,314	21
Barnard College	Private	NY	2,578	18
Colgate University	Private	NY	2,980	13
Columbia University in the City of New York	Private	NY	7,728	18
Cornell University	Private	NY	15,043	16
Skidmore College	Private	NY	2,609	17
Union College	Private	NY	2,167	13
Vassar College	Private	NY	2,415	19
Davidson College	Private	NC	1,837	15
Duke University	Private	NC	6,583	12
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill	Public	NC	18,579	22
Wake Forest University	Private	NC	5,234	9
Case Western Reserve University	Private	OH	5,222	13
Denison University	Private	OH	2,270	21
Kenyon College	Private	OH	1,733	10
Marietta College	Private	OH	1,061	31
Oberlin College	Private	OH	2,818	8
Reed College	Private	OR	1,413	12
Bryn Mawr College	Private	PA	1,375	15
Franklin and Marshall College	Private	PA	2,315	18
Haverford College	Private	PA	1,317	16
Lafayette College	Private	PA	2,635	10
Swarthmore College	Private	PA	1,594	22
University of Pennsylvania	Private	PA	10,447	13
Brown University	Private	RI	6,802	14
Vanderbilt University	Private	TN	6,817	15
Rice University	Private	TX	3,949	17
Texas Southern University	Public	TX	6,028	80
Middlebury College	Private	VT	2,554	17
University of Richmond	Private	VA	3,010	16
University of Virginia	Public	VA	16,330	13
Washington and Lee University	Private	VA	1,841	14