Financial Aid Tip: Check Statistics on Average Percentage of Need Met

The price of private schools can be extremely daunting, and may frighten off potential students. But before you dismiss a school as unrealistically expensive here’s an important statistic you need to check out: the average percentage of financial aid that the school is able to meet.
Here’s how his works. The student and parents will out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), which determines the student’s eligibility for financial aid. Then the student is admitted to a school. Based on the amount of financial need the student has, the school may be able to provide need based awards, work study, and other financial aid (which does not include outside aid such as loans and scholarships from other sources).
Private schools often are able to provide students with a large percentage of their estimated need — so when applying to schools, one of the first things you should ask about is the average percentage of financial need that the school is able to provide. In some cases, the school is able to provide students with most of even all of their projected financial need!
Of course, this makes a difference in the price of college. If one school costs $40,000 a year but is able to meet 98 percent of students’ need, and another school is only $30,000 a year but only provides an average of 80 percent of financial need, the more expensive school is a much better bargain.