Colleges That Meet Full Need -- No Loans Required

There are opportunities for students to graduate from college debt free, but it does require some advanced research and a basic understanding of some financial aid terms.

Money magazine recently published a list of 75 colleges that promise to meet 100% of students’ financial need.  What does full need mean? It’s the difference between a family’s ability to pay (based on the FAFSA and sometimes the CSS Profile financial aid form) and a college’s price of attendance.  But colleges can meet full need in a variety of ways.  Many colleges start with federal student loans and work study and then add on scholarships to reach the monetary need.  Other colleges have “no-loan practices,” allowing students to truly graduate debt-free.

The schools with no-loan policies include all eight Ivy League institutions (Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton, University of Pennsylvania and Yale) as well as Amherst, Bowdoin, Colby, College of the Ozarks, Davidson, Duke, Emory, Haverford, Lafayette, Lehigh, Northwestern, Pomona, Rice, Stanford, Swarthmore, Tufts, University of Chicago, University of North Carolina, Vanderbilt, Washington and Lee, Washington University -St. Louis, Wellesley, Wesleyan, and Williams.  Some of these colleges have a cap on family income, varying between $40,000 (at Duke) and $100,000 (at Dartmouth). Lehigh University has another stipulation; family net assets may not exceed $500,000.

Some colleges that meet the full financial need of their students are “need blind,” while others are “need aware.”  Need blind colleges offer admission to students without regard to their financial need, while need aware colleges may consider an applicant’s ability to pay when deciding whether or not to offer acceptance.  Students are required, on their college applications, to indicate whether or not they are in need of financial aid.

Of course, all of these colleges are highly competitive from an academic standpoint requiring impressive GPA’s, top SAT scores, and a record of accomplishments during a student’s high school years. So students who hope to benefit from the generosity and large endowments of some of these most elite institutions need to hit the ground running from the very start of their high school years.     

Susan Alaimo is the founder of SAT Smart. For the past 25 years, SAT Smart’s Ivy League educated tutors have prepared students for the PSAT, SAT, ACT, Subject Tests, AP courses, and all high school subjects. Visit www.SATsmart.com or call 908-369-5362.