Hamilton College in New York has announced that they will now be need blind for admissions. For those of you not up on your college financial aid jargon, this means that Hamilton will now make admissions decision without considering whether a student will need financial aid. Hamilton also meets 100% of the financial need of each admitted student.
This is very good, if not somewhat surprising, news. With all of the losses sustained by college endowments in the past few years, colleges have been looking at reducing their generosity, not increasing it. Williams College, for instance, recently decided to reverse their no loan policy for financial aid packages. Williams is still need blind and meets the full need of all admitted students. But Hamilton has a much smaller endowment than Williams.
Unfortunately, the new policy will not extend to transfer students and international students but given the resources Hamilton has, I think they are being very good stewards of their money.
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