What is a meets need school and what does it mean?

meets need meets need school Feb 09, 2023

What is a "meets need" school and what does it mean?

Got a low FAFSA EFC? You may have some options!

While the sticker price for college is certainly shocking, there are financial options for many families based on their financial need.

Some colleges promise to meet the financial need of accepted students whether they are in-state, out-of-state, or international students.

Demonstrated financial need is the financial gap between your FAFSA EFC and the cost of attendance at the particular school. Generally, your EFC increases with your income and assets. Cost of attendance is generally the total cost including tuition, fees, room, board, books, and other costs associated with attending that college.

If your FAFSA EFC is 0, then a 100% meets need school, without loans, might be the way to go. With an EFC of 0, that college may cover 100% of the cost of attendance and your teen would attend that college for free. Of course, your teen still needs to be accepted.

It’s important that families with a low EFC to understand that winning private scholarships can have the effect of “lowering” the amount that the college offers. Why is that? Because technically you no longer have the same “need”. This is called scholarship displacement. Not all schools have this policy but some do. And a few states have changed this practice.

Most of the time when scholarship displacement is practiced it occurs in this order.:

If Work Study is offered, the work study job will be removed or the amount reduced. (Understand that work study is not a scholarship. If a work study amount is in your offer letter, you are expected to come up with that amount when the bill is due in August. Then your teen is expected to get a work study job and get paid throughout the semester or year for the hours actually worked. So work study is really not a prize. You kid can get any job with the same effect.

After work study, a subsidized student loan will be changed to an unsubsidized student loan.

And third, if your private scholarships exceed those two, then there may be a reduction in the discounts or grants offered by the college.

Basically, you won’t be bringing home excess cash. Whatever you are expected to pay on your financial aid letter is what you will likely have to pay.

Colleges that have committed to filling 100% of demonstrated need without loans are listed here.:

School	State	Acceptance Rate
Amherst College	Massachusetts	9%
Berea College	Kentucky	33%
Bowdoin College	Maine	9%
Brown University	Rhode Island	6%
Colby College	Maine	9%
College of the Ozarks	Missouri	21%
Columbia University	New York	4%
Dartmouth College	New Hampshire	6%
Davidson College	North Carolina	18%
Emory University	Georgia	13%
Grinnell College	Iowa	11%
Harvard University	Massachusetts	4%
Johns Hopkins University	Maryland	8%
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)	Massachusetts	4$
Northwestern University	Illinois	7%
Pomona College	California	7%
Princeton University	New Jersey	4%
Rice University	Texas	9%
Smith College	Massachusetts	30%
Stanford University	California	4%
Swarthmore College	Pennsylvania	8%
University of Chicago	Illinois	6%
University of Pennsylvania	Pennsylvania	6%
U.S. Air Force Academy	Colorado	12%
U.S. Military Academy	New York	11%
U.S. Naval Academy	Maryland	8%
Vanderbilt University	Tennessee	7%
Washington and Lee University	Virginia	19%
Williams College	Massachusetts	9%
Yale University	Connecticut	5

For these schools the criteria must also meet the threshold of the family income and then the meet the need without loans.:

School	Income Threshold	State	Acceptance Rate
Colgate University	Total income less than $175,000	New York	17%
Cornell University	Total income less than $60,000 and total assets below $100,000	New York	9%
Haverford College	Total income less than $60,000	Pennsylvania	18%
Lafayette College	Total income less than $150,000 with “typical assets”	Pennsylvania	41%
Texas A&M University	Total income less than $60,000	Texas	64%
Texas State University	Total income less than $50,000	Texas	70%
Tufts University	Total income less than $60,000	Massachusetts	11%
University of California – Berkeley	California residents with total income less than $80,000	California	14%
University of California – Davis	California residents with total income less than $80,000	California	49%
University of California – Irvine	California residents with total income less than $80,000	California	29%
University of California – Los Angeles (UCLA)	California residents with total income less than $80,000	California	11%
University of California – Merced	California residents with total income less than $80,000	California	87%
University of California – Riverside	California residents with total income less than $80,000	California	65%
University of California – San Diego	California residents with total income less than $80,000	California	34%
University of California – Santa Barbara	California residents with total income less than $80,000	California	29%
University of California – Santa Cruz	California residents with total income less than $80,000	California	59%
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign	In-state students with total income less than $67,100 and assets below $50,000	Illinois	60%
University of Michigan – Ann Arbor	High-achieving, in-state, full-time students with total income less than $65,000 and assets below $50,000	Michigan	20%
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC)	Total income at or below 200% of the poverty guideline	North Carolina	20%
University of Texas – Dallas	Total income less than $65,000	Texas	87%
University of Texas – El Paso	Total income less than $65,000	Texas	100%
University of Tennessee	Total income less than $60,000	Tennessee	75%
University of Vermont	Vermont residents with total income less than $60,000	Vermont	64%
Washington University in St. Louis	Total income less than $75,000	Missouri	13%
Wellesley College	Total income less than $100,000	Massachusetts	16%
Wesleyan University	Total income less than $100,000 and total assets below $400,000	Connecticut	19%

The following colleges meet 100% of financial need but include loans in their financial offers. (Please read the financial offer letter carefully so that you understand your obligations.:

School	State	Acceptance Rate
Barnard College	New York	11%
Bates College	Maine	17%
Boston College	Massachusetts	19%
Bryn Mawr College	Pennsylvania	39%
California Institute of Technology (Caltech)	California	4%
Carleton College	Minnesota	18%
Claremont McKenna College	California	11%
College of the Holy Cross	Massachusetts	43%
Connecticut College	Connecticut	41%
Colorado College	Colorado	14%
Denison University	Ohio	28%
Franklin & Marshall College	Pennsylvania	38%
Georgetown University	Washington D.C.	12%
Hamilton College	New York	14%
Harvey Mudd College	California	10%
Kenyon College	Ohio	37%
Macalester College	Minnesota	31%
Middlebury College	Vermont	13%
Northeastern University	Massachusetts	18%
Oberlin College	Ohio	34%
Occidental College	California	38%
Pitzer College	California	18%
Reed College	Oregon	44%
Scripps College	California	30%
Skidmore College	New York	31%
Thomas Aquinas College	California	83%
Trinity College	Connecticut	38%
Union College	New York	47%
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill	North Carolina	20%
University of Notre Dame	Indiana	15%
University of Richmond	Virginia	29%
University of Rochester	New York	41%
University of Southern California (USC)	California	13%
University of Virginia	Viginia	21%
Vassar College	New York	20%
Wake Forest University	North Carolina	25

What is a meets need school and what does it mean?

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