As you shop around for colleges, know that the sticker price you see on the website, mailings and brochures isn’t necessarily the price you’ll be paying. In addition to providing financial aid to meet need, colleges and universities try to woo students with generous scholarship and grant packages as well.
In the end, those high-price schools can actually be pretty affordable. For instance, the full price for a private college may be upwards of $60,000; however, you could land a scholarship and financial aid package that totals $50,000. That makes the private college just as affordable – if not more so – than a public college or university.
With that, it’s important to apply to colleges regardless of their price. Maybe you could start with the top 10 most generous colleges, according to The Princeton Review?
- Vanderbilt University – Nashville, Tennessee • Annual tuition and fees: $57,974 • Average financial aid package: $54,417
- Williams College – Williamstown, Massachusetts • Annual tuition and fees: $59,350 • Average financial aid package: $51,358
- Grinnell College – Grinnell, Iowa • Annual tuition and fees: $58,156 • Average financial aid package: $46,465
- Washington University in St. Louis – St. Louis, Missouri • Annual tuition and fees: $57,750 • Average financial aid package: $54,138
- Bowdoin College – Brunswick, Maine • Annual tuition and fees: $57,776 • Average financial aid package: $48,856
- Reed College – Portland, Oregon • Annual tuition and fees: $62,420 • Average financial aid package: $44,817
- Rice University – Houston, Texas • Annual tuition and fees: $52,070 • Average financial aid package: $49,152
- Thomas Aquinas College (CA) – Santa Paula, California • Annual tuition and fees: $26,000 • Average financial aid package: $15,433
- College of the Atlantic – Bar Harbor, Maine • Annual tuition and fees: $42,993 • Average financial aid package: $38,519
- Denison University – Granville, Ohio • Annual tuition and fees: $57,500 • Average financial aid package: $42,350
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