Top Ranked Colleges Providing the Most Financial Aid
One of the largest barriers for college students is money. Money to pay for tuition, books, room & board, fees, parking, books, laundry, telephone, and the list goes on. The facts remain, as a nation we have reached an all-time high for college graduates. Over 33% of citizens in the United States have a bachelors degree or higher. Further, the BLS has provided a deep analysis showing the correlation between education, income, and employment stability. The chart can be seen here showing the marked difference between college educated working professional and those without a degree.
To make the most of your college education, we have performed an analysis of data to help prospective college students see things differently. Meaning, a school with a published tuition rate of $50,000 may seem out of reach until you consider financial aid. Financial aid includes the following:
- Grants
- Scholarships
- Assistantships
- Loans
- Tuition Waivers
- Fellowships
- Employer Aid
- Military Benefits
- Tuition Discounts
The rankings below represent the colleges and universities that provide the most student aid. Data was collected from the Department of Education, NCES domain using the latest published final data available which was for 2015. In addition, we have included data showing the amount of institutional aid and state aid along with the percentage of aid to new students. A full description of the data collected include:
AT Grant: The column AT Grant represents the average amount of federal, state, local, or institutional grant aid awarded.
AS Grant: This represents the average amount of state and/or local grant aid awarded to full-time, first-time undergraduates.
AI Grant: The AI Grant column is the average amount of institutional grant aid awarded to full-time, first-time undergraduates.
FAid: Is an abbreviation for financial aid and represents the percentage of full-time first-time undergraduates awarded any financial aid.
A List of the Top 50 Ranked Schools for Financial Aid
| Rank | School Name | AT Grant | AS Grant | AI Grant | FAid |
| 1 | Columbia University | $48,926 | $3,668 | $47,043 | 58% |
| 2 | Amherst College | $47,145 | $2,552 | $44,922 | 68% |
| 3 | Harvard University | $46,508 | $2,482 | $44,029 | 75% |
| 4 | Yale University | $45,806 | $2,492 | $43,650 | 58% |
| 5 | Webb Institute | $44,756 | $500 | $44,000 | 100% |
| 6 | Pomona College | $44,209 | $8,045 | $40,897 | 66% |
| 7 | Dartmouth College | $43,785 | $586 | $41,963 | 61% |
| 8 | Haverford College | $43,170 | $2,312 | $41,584 | 59% |
| 9 | Stanford University | $43,118 | $9,074 | $40,600 | 68% |
| 10 | Duke University | $42,704 | $4,373 | $41,083 | 62% |
| 11 | Reed College | $42,645 | $1,789 | $40,679 | 51% |
| 12 | Williams College | $42,474 | $2,327 | $40,777 | 59% |
| 13 | Colby College | $42,192 | $897 | $40,686 | 45% |
| 14 | Vassar College | $42,125 | $2,645 | $40,139 | 71% |
| 15 | Wesleyan University | $41,906 | $1,994 | $39,024 | 50% |
| 16 | Princeton University | $41,764 | $9,126 | $39,805 | 59% |
| 17 | Middlebury College | $40,963 | $1,540 | $38,915 | 50% |
| 18 | Swarthmore College | $40,870 | $1,932 | $39,044 | 59% |
| 19 | Colgate University | $40,664 | $2,783 | $38,863 | 51% |
| 20 | Trinity College | $40,276 | $1,930 | $38,495 | 48% |
| 21 | University of Pennsylvania | $40,276 | $2,776 | $38,418 | 58% |
| 22 | Franklin and Marshall College | $40,089 | $3,129 | $38,051 | 63% |
| 23 | Washington and Lee University | $39,931 | $2,960 | $43,207 | 63% |
| 24 | Hamilton College | $39,863 | $3,448 | $37,782 | 57% |
| 25 | Brown University | $39,737 | $476 | $37,642 | 62% |
| 26 | Bard College | $39,613 | $2,906 | $37,505 | 70% |
| 27 | Colorado College | $39,473 | $2,307 | $37,856 | 57% |
| 28 | Vanderbilt University | $39,383 | $5,168 | $38,663 | 69% |
| 29 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $39,339 | $1,793 | $37,224 | 88% |
| 30 | Barnard College | $39,328 | $4,209 | $36,942 | 56% |
| 31 | Wellesley College | $38,950 | $2,043 | $37,638 | 65% |
| 32 | Skidmore College | $38,712 | $5,076 | $36,169 | 58% |
| 33 | Bowdoin College | $38,494 | $900 | $36,588 | 47% |
| 34 | Davidson College | $38,056 | $5,057 | $36,455 | 70% |
| 35 | Bates College | $37,814 | $931 | $36,795 | 47% |
| 36 | University of Richmond | $37,799 | $2,955 | $37,333 | 67% |
| 37 | Georgetown University | $37,791 | $975 | $35,991 | 52% |
| 38 | California Institute of Technology | $37,777 | $3,634 | $35,587 | 71% |
| 39 | Wake Forest University | $37,554 | $4,663 | $35,282 | 48% |
| 40 | Pitzer College | $37,462 | $9,084 | $33,665 | 46% |
| 41 | Lafayette College | $36,912 | $2,730 | $35,852 | 55% |
| 42 | Boston College | $36,668 | $1,768 | $34,606 | 55% |
| 43 | Tufts University | $36,384 | $1,692 | $34,282 | 50% |
| 44 | Smith College | $35,987 | $1,961 | $34,656 | 72% |
| 45 | University of Notre Dame | $35,739 | $2,823 | $34,552 | 66% |
| 46 | Connecticut College | $35,478 | $2,067 | $33,871 | 53% |
| 47 | Emory University | $35,416 | $4,806 | $33,497 | 51% |
| 48 | Johns Hopkins University | $35,195 | $1,444 | $34,460 | 63% |
| 49 | Bennington College | $34,989 | $1,082 | $33,667 | 97% |
| 50 | Cornell University | $34,941 | $2,838 | $33,913 | 61% |
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