This is Part 3 of our 3-part Scholarships 101 series. In Part 1, we covered our thoughts on private scholarships. In Part 2, we covered how students can position themselves to earn more merit-based financial aid.
At Advantage College Planning, we have a thriving work book club. Together, we read about 6 books a year (yes, even during application season). Most are related to college admissions, but some aren’t (we all enjoyed Glennon Doyle’s Untamed), and right now, we’re reading Mindful Admissions by Laurén Carter.
One of our book club picks in 2020 was Jeff Selingo’s Who Gets In and Why. In his book, he coins the idea of colleges as “buyers” or “sellers.” Summarizing from his website, colleges that are “sellers” have plenty of competitive applications to choose from to fill a class. They don’t need to use financial aid as any sort of incentive to attract admitted students into accepting their acceptance. These schools may still offer financial aid, but maybe it’s need-based only or to a very small percentage of students. Simply put: they can be generous with their financial aid (especially when we’re talking about need-based aid), but they may not be generous to all families or to your family.
Colleges that Selingo terms as “buyers,” on the other hand, take a different approach to awarding financial aid. They may award larger scholarships to attract competitive students to attend their college. Or maybe they award generous merit aid to students with little or no financial need, which can be a welcome relief to families who won’t qualify for much or any need-based financial aid but are still facing a hefty tuition bill.
Whether or not you like Selingo’s terminology, an important piece to understanding the financial aid puzzle is understanding a college’s financial generosity. Knowing which colleges award financial aid generously to which students will help your family determine if a college is a good overall financial fit.
Here are some tools for measuring a college’s financial generosity:
NET PRICE CALCULATOR
Any college or university participating in a federal financial aid program is required to have a Net Price Calculator accessible on their website. Filling out this calculator will give you an estimate of what your family can expect to pay for one year of college at that institution based on individual factors like your family’s income and your student’s GPA and/or test scores.
A net price calculator only gives an estimate, but it’s a personalized one. That’s important because the definition of financial generosity will vary from family to family. Harvard, for example, awards full financial aid packages to students whose families earn less than $65,000 per year. That’s extremely generous for those families and life-changing for those students. Filling out Harvard’s Net Price Calculator would let you see if Harvard is a financial fit for your family too—provided it is also an academic and social fit!
Pro Tip: Sometimes, a Net Price Calculator will let you skip a lot of the financial data entry if you know your Expected Family Contribution (EFC). You can get this number through the Federal Student Aid Estimator.
COLLEGEDATA.COM
A college profile’s “Financials” tab on CollegeData.com is my favorite tool for understanding how a college awards financial aid. This page is packed with information and clues about a college’s financial generosity. Here’s just a snippet of the profile for Wofford College, a private liberal arts college in South Carolina:
Let’s look at what we can learn from Wofford’s profile. Around 85% of applicants in the 2020-2021 cycle applied for financial need and around 72% were found to have financial need (meaning their EFC was less than the total cost of attendance a Wofford).
100% of applicants who had demonstrated need received financial aid. That’s great!
Wofford met the full need (not the same as the full cost of attendance!) of around 44% of students. Hmm. Is that good or bad? Let’s see… On the one hand, it could be higher, but if we look at schools that are similar to Wofford, it’s not too bad (Elon University - 19.7%, Furman University - 51.4%, Presbyterian College - 34.4%).
Average percent of need met is 90%. That’s very good! But remember—this doesn’t mean 90% of the total cost of attendance is met. It’s an average of 90% of each family’s demonstrated need (that’s the total cost of attendance minus the EFC).
College Data lists out the average award and breaks it down a step further so you can see how much of it is need-based gift (scholarships, grants, etc… based on financial need) and how much of it is self-help or work-study.
Finally, the profile lists merit-based gift awards so you can see if the college awards merit-based financial aid to students, even students who do not qualify for any need-based aid. And if they do award non-need-based merit aid, how much and how frequently. Compared to many colleges, Wofford does pretty well here!
Further down the page, College Data breaks down the same information for the entire school instead of just freshmen. It also shows the percentage of students taking out loans and the average student loan debt of a recent graduating class.
Like I said, my favorite tool!
COLLEGE FINANCIAL AID OFFICE
I’ve mentioned it in every part. of this series so far, but a college’s financial aid website and their office are a great tool for getting any additional questions answered about financial generosity at any point during the college planning or application process. Here are some financial generosity markers to look out for as you’re learning more:
Outside Scholarship Policy - I covered this in Part 1, but some colleges will reduce a student’s financial aid package if that student is bringing private outside scholarships with them. It’s important to know this information ahead of time! And if the college does reduce a financial aid award, it’s important to know how the package will change. Ideally, they would reduce loans first before grants and other gift aid.
Loan Limits - Some colleges are starting to limit or even eliminate loans from their financial aid packages. If that’s an important factor for you, look for language indicating some kind of policy around loan limitations.
College Financial Health - Understanding the financial health of colleges in an underrated part of the college search process (it’s a lot less fun than seeing the dorms on a college visit or picturing yourself in the student stands on game day!). But a college generally has to have a healthy endowment in order to afford to be financially generous. In recent years, there have been major studies into the financial health of universities.
Edmit does a deep, deep dive for those of you who love data (for those of you feeling a little overwhelmed, it’s a lot of the same information as College Data, but let me direct your attention to the bar graph labeled Average Cost where you’ll see an average yearly cost of attendance by family income range. The section right below it, Financial Health, also gives a nice snapshot.
If I lost you with “bar graph,” Forbes has simplified things and given colleges a Financial Health Grade. Scroll down, and you can search by college name.
COLLEGE CONSULTANT
Your last tool for understanding a college’s financial generosity—and financial fit as a whole—is to speak with a college consultant. We have years of experience with the financial aid process and can help guide your family through the process from beginning to end.
If you want to take what you’ve learned in our Scholarships 101 series to the next level, look for one of our free 10 Keys to College Affordability webinars!