Colleges With The Best Financial Aid (PHOTOS): Princeton Review Honor Roll

Eleven colleges received the Princeton Review's highest financial aid services rating this year -- is yours on the list? Let us know what you think in the comments section! And see the Princeton Review for more college financial aid data.

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Bowdoin College

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Comments

[PeterMelzer]

07:48 AM on 08/05/2010

Good public universities still provide the best return on your college investment.
Read more here:
http://brainmindinst.blogspot.com/2010/07/value-of-education-economically.html

[Helanren]

06:22 AM on 08/05/2010

Isn't #4 Hogwarts in stead of Harvard :-)?

[Xineheard]

09:26 PM on 08/05/2010

That's Annenberg Hall where all the freshmen eat. XD Brown has Emma Watson though, so it wins the Harry Potter contest.

[Name Not In Use]

03:50 AM on 08/05/2010

Of course in Europe they're all free anyway ,,, is that right?

[CtrlClick]

07:18 AM on 08/05/2010

In Scotland they are free for Scots and EU citizens except for the English, even though it is subsidised by the English tax payer. I believe it’s free in Norway and some other Scandinavian countries. I England it’s subsidised so the average degree cost around £3,500 a year in tuition fees. It was free until the socialist labour party (party of the working class) decided to stop poor people going to university.

[PeterMelzer]

08:00 AM on 08/05/2010

We still have to cover our living expenses which may run as high as those in Manhattan in some major EU cities. If you precisely know what you want and how your education fits over here, provided you wish to return, it will be a great learning experience.

[BurtonDesque]

11:21 PM on 08/04/2010

Harvard's endowment is so large it could make the place FREE if they wanted to. They weren't so free with the financial aid when I was there. I guess they've come up with other ways to keep the plebians out.

[PeterMelzer]

07:54 AM on 08/05/2010

It may seem that way. But because of the enormous expenses for ambitious expansion in the past decade and the sharp losses in endowment investment in 2008, private universities struggle to provide enough cash on hand to make payroll. The good times are over, even at Harvard.

Read more here:
http://brainmindinst.blogspot.com/2008/12/financial-crisis-higher-education.html

[Trebla]

09:15 PM on 08/04/2010

We are not getting much to decide if this list is even a little valid.
Financial aid comes in a lot of packages, but one measure is the number of students receiving Pell Grants. It was pointed out that UC Berkeley has more Pell Grant recipients than the entire Ivy League. How can that be ignored on this list.

[NetLoa]

09:39 PM on 08/04/2010

I believe this is aid from the school itself. Pell grants come from the government.

[Trebla]

09:54 PM on 08/04/2010

OK, I can see that as part of the narrower view of aid.
But, Pell Grants are also a marker for those students in need of help. The distribution of the Grants would suggest the Ivy League cohort has a lower level of need to begin with.

[ChuckDarwin]

01:59 AM on 08/05/2010

UC Berkeley also has more STUDENTS than the entire Ivy League combined. And Pell Grants come from the federal govt., not UC Berkeley.

[BHD]

09:03 PM on 08/04/2010

**citation needed

[runfellow]

07:07 PM on 08/04/2010

One can only hope they're not including loans as "aid". That said, most of those schools are well known to give decent grants and scholarships to those who deserve them.

[alexandracabot]

09:05 PM on 08/04/2010

I know financial aid at the Ivies, at least, is now completely loan-free.

[veritas88]

11:09 PM on 08/04/2010

not for grad students at Yale, unfortunately.

[joefoss]

06:56 PM on 08/04/2010

It used to be that any school that met 100% of student financial need was considered generous.
=Then, a small number of colleges & universities, mostly "Ivy League," went a step further.
They not only offered to cover 100% of need, but do it with all grants/scholarships that,
unlike loans, don't have to be paid back.
=Unfortunately, then the Wall Street crash happened, and even Harvard, thanks to former
university president and current Obama financial guru Larry Summers' risky investments, lost more than 1/3 of its endowment. As a result of the crash, most of the schools using this "debt free" approach to financial aid had to stop.
=Last I heard, Princeton was still meeting 100% of need with no loans. It might be helpful
to confirm this and publish a list of just those instituitions that still offer this "bargain."

[Lazy Lousy Liza Jane]

08:19 PM on 08/04/2010

And Penn!

[alexandracabot]

09:06 PM on 08/04/2010

I believe that financial aid is loan-free at most, if not all, of these schools. It is at Yale, which isn't even on this list.

[jasev01]

06:37 PM on 08/04/2010

this is a lie, at Brown I paid hardly nothing, I got all kinds of scholarships and Wustl offered no money at all.

[Lazy Lousy Liza Jane]

08:19 PM on 08/04/2010

This is interesting, as none of the schools belonging to the Ivy League offer merit scholarships. Perhaps you mean you received financial aid from Brown?

[jasev01]

11:16 PM on 08/04/2010

Don't know. I know I got a Brown endowed scholarship all for years. i never wanted for anything my whole time. For that I owe them, they made my college years care free.

[MrUnlimited]

08:05 AM on 08/05/2010

jasev01 might be referring to the grants (or maybe fellowships) he received at Brown.

[bruinlover09]

01:44 AM on 08/05/2010

thanks. I am glad to learn that I wasn't only one. Going to another school that is create an amazing fin aid for my graduate degree.

[SilentSolidarity]

06:23 PM on 08/04/2010

No international colleges? For good reason! Many European countries don't have tuition or in another way, everyone gets full financial aid.

[devildog09]

06:21 PM on 08/04/2010

So Harkin slams "for profit colleges." Big deal. Show me a democrat who doesn't slam profits, wherever they may exist

[joefoss]

07:01 PM on 08/04/2010

What good does it "profit" a man who has lost his own soul?
=Or, in this case, what good does it do a student who "graduates", with a massive debt
obligation, from one of these "for-profit" pseudo-colleges, only to find that his/her diploma isn't recognized by either graduate school admission committees or personnel directors?

[lisakaz2]

10:34 PM on 08/04/2010

Figures you don't get that many of those institutions are shams to get students to give 'em their loan money.

[atfbailey]

05:42 PM on 08/04/2010

Berea College accepts only students in need of financial aid and gives every last student a four year full tuition scholarship - valued at over $100,000. Oh and it has also been ranked the #1 comprehensive liberal arts college in the South, was attended by Naomi Tutu, was founded as the sister college of Oberlin and the first coed/integrated college in the South, ranked best college buy in the country by Forbes, has bell hooks as a professor, the student body president writes for HuffPo, and the list of distinguishing factors goes on - and on. How is it that this astoundingly accomplished liberal arts college never makes any of HuffPo's list - especially this one?!

[lisakaz2]

05:36 PM on 08/04/2010

I always thought my alma mater was good in this dept -- Northwestern.

[alexandracabot]

09:09 PM on 08/04/2010

Northwestern expected me to pay almost three times as much as the Ivies I was accepted to. Not criticizing, as I know their endowment is much smaller, but in my experience their fin aid is not quite up to caliber with schools like Harvard and Yale.

[lisakaz2]

10:40 PM on 08/04/2010

I don't have that basis of comparison. I found one of the Ivies very snooty via the person the Admissions Office deemed qualified to interview me for the university. He had his mind made up before I opened my mouth that I should go to a small liberal arts college, that I wasn't good enough for them. He knew nothing about the college and did absolutely nothing to inform me about it or convey any enthusiasm about it, basically didn't entertain one iota of potential that this university would admit me. I didn't get in but at least I was incensed enough to complain about this guy. I doubt it did any good.

So my basis of comparison is NYU and Boston University. Northwestern blew the doors off both.

[cdub1991]

06:03 PM on 08/06/2010

They were certainly near the top when I went there--long ago and far away in the late 70's, early 80's. They also had a high suicide rate, however, so I guess you paid a price for not having to pay a price.