College Rankings for Financial Aid

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 bachelor’s 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%