Colleges with Best Financial Aid

List of Colleges with Best Financial Aid

Day-by-day, as we all know the education costs are increasing and are reaching a new sky high. Now considering the Indian NRIs who migrate to different countries for work, they’re already fighting to save as much as they can. However, their children have to go to schools and colleges, for which parents have to give out a huge share from their savings to this cause. And over the years, there has been a steady grown in the number of Indian NRI Students, and while they apply for their colleges/schools they face a huge problem with finance.

To help Indian NRI Student or as a matter of fact any student to get quality education, financial aids are provided by colleges or by banks and lenders. Do you think that all financial aids are beneficial? Are aids a short-term support or a long term burden? Let’s find out what types of financial aids available are and how they impact a student.

 

There are two types of financial aids:

• Good Financial Aid 

• Bad Financial Aid

 

Let’s talk about Bad Financial Aid first.

Bad Financial Aid

Bad financial Aids are a good short term solution, but a burdensome task in the long term. They're like good aids, but here you'll have to pay them after you graduate. Plus there's additional burden of interest. These stay with student for a long time post they have completed their graduation.

 

Types of Bad Financial Aids

Private Loans

Private loans don't form a part of college provided financial aid, as these are provided by banks/financial institutions. Usually, they have a high interest rate which adds to the total loan amount. It is always advisable to keep private loans as the last resort and should always be considered after grants, scholarships, and low-interest/subsidized loans, reason being the high interest rates.

 

A "Bad" Financial Aid Package

These packages are offered by colleges where they have a tie-up with a bank/financial institution. They’re offered to students; however, onus of repaying the funding is put on Students. Most of the Indian NRI Students usually take up admissions using this particular option. And then they're stuck with it until they don't find a good job that can help them pay it out.

 

Good Financial Aid

Good financial aids are better options and considered sustainable in long run. This enables a student to afford the education you need without affecting you professionally, financially, or personally after you graduate.

 

Types of Good Financial Aids

Some examples of Good Financial Aid are as follows:

Grants

Grants are usually a type of award that you received and it doesn’t hinder you with repayment responsibility. And it surely is free money.

Scholarships

Scholarships are similar to grants. However, the major difference is for scholarships evaluations are done based on merit, even if it’s need-based.

Low-Interest Loans

Educational loans provided by Federal Government, they have low-interest rates, including direct loans and Perkins loans.

Subsidized Loans

These types of loans are good for students as they don't accrue interest while you're in school and 6-10 months post completion.

 

A "Good" Financial Aid Package

These packages are usually a mix of grants, loans and/or scholarships. In case of loans, the interest rate would be 5% or lower.

Below is a list of Schools/Colleges that offer best kind of financial aid are as follows:

• Amherst College

• Bowdoin College

• Brown University

• Colby College

• Columbia University

• Dartmouth College (No loans for family income less than $100,000)

• Davidson College

• Duke University (No loans for family income less than $40,000; sliding scale after that)

• Harvard University

• Haverford College (No loans for family income under $60,000)

• Lehigh University (No loans for family income under $75,000; sliding scale after that)

• MIT (No loans for family income under $90,000)

• Northwestern University (All first-year aid packages are loan-free)

• Pomona College

• Princeton University

• Rice University (No loans for family income below $80,000; small loans above that)

• Stanford University

• Swarthmore College

• University of Chicago

• University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill (low-income North Carolina students may qualify for aid without loans through the Carolina Covenant)

• University of Pennsylvania

• University of Richmond

• Vanderbilt University

• Vassar College (No or limited loans for low-income families)

• Washington and Lee University

• Washington University in St Louis (no loans for family income below $75,000)

• Wellesley College (no loans for family income below $60,000; sliding scale after that)

• Williams College (no loans for family income below $75,000)

• Yale University

 

Below Colleges offer need-based aid by merit:

• Rhode College

• Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering

• New England Conservatory of Music

• John Brown University

• University of Puget Sound

• Samford University

• University of Mary

• Trinity University

• The New School

• Denison University                                 

• Hillsdale College

• Furman University

• Gonzaga University

• Birmingham – Southern College

• University of Tulsa

• UT-Permian Basin

• Centre College

• Oberlin College

• San Francisco Art Institute

• Savannah College of Art and Design

• DePauw University

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