76 Best Bets for College Merit Scholarships

The best bets for college merit scholarships aren’t necessarily schools you have heard of. But if you’re serious about looking for an affordable education at a good college, does it matter? Don’t think you’ll qualify for any significant need-based financial aid? Then it’s time to begin looking beyond the rankings and paying attention to the data that tells you how much money schools are giving students.

Join other parents in the Coffee Cup College Planning Facebook Group

How Schools Made the Best Bets for College Merit Scholarships List

I created this list based on data from The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) available as of July of this year. IPEDS lists the percentage of freshman who are receiving institutional gift aid and the average amount. If over 90% of freshman are getting institutional aid, it can’t all be need-based. That means that it’s very likely these schools are awarding a significant amount of merit money to students without need.

The amount of merit scholarships counts

The merit money isn’t going to be very helpful if it doesn’t even cover the cost of books. Therefore, I took into account the average institutional award and the average net price. The best bets for college merit scholarships list only includes schools where the average award was 30% or more of the total cost of attendance. I also excluded schools where the average net price was over $34,000. This prevents schools that charge $80,000 and offer $20,000 in merit scholarships from making the list.

Increased opportunities for merit money should decrease the need for PLUS Loans

Another consideration was the percentage of undergraduates that had PLUS loans taken out on their behalf. Parents looking for schools with college merit scholarships are trying to avoid having to take out PLUS loans to pay the bills. While I don’t necessarily know why schools with generous merit aid would have a large percentage of parents with PLUS loans, I excluded schools where there percentage was more than 15%.

Which schools have incentives to offer merit scholarships?

Merit money is about providing incentives for students to attend the college. Schools with low yield rates (the percentage of accepted students who actually enroll) would seem to have more incentive to provide merit aid. The colleges that made the list all have yield rates below 20%.

As always, graduation rates matter

Finally, on the premise that the most expensive college is the one you don’t graduate from, I checked graduation rates. After all, college merit scholarships don’t do you any good if you don’t have a decent chance of graduating. Therefore, I only included colleges with 4-year graduation rates of 50% or better.

What Kind of Schools Made the List

The colleges that are the best bets for merit aid are all private and located in 28 states. Illinois and Massachusetts have the most with six each followed by Indiana, New York and Wisconsin with five each. You’ll notice the mid-west is heavily represented on the list.

Best bets for college merit scholarships come from smaller schools

Not surprisingly, most of the schools are small with only four having 5,000 or more full-time undergraduates. Over half of the schools, 46, have less than 2,000 full-time undergraduates. Why is this not surprising? Because there are a lot more smaller colleges to begin with. Furthermore, most students seem to have a preference for schools of 5,000 or more which mean those colleges have less incentive to offer generous merit money. It’s the basic laws of supply and demand.

Given the size ranges, you would expect a concentration of Liberal Arts College. A total of 29 schools on the best bets for college scholarships list are classified as LACs, 29 are Master levels schools and only 12 are Doctoral level institutions. However, 14 of the schools are classified as Division 1 in the NCAA, including one FBS school, Seton Hall. Only 12 are in Division 2 and 42 are in Division 3.

The colleges on the list have acceptance rates that range from 46% to 93%. For those concerned about academic challenge, at least 33 have Phi Beta Kappa chapters.

Not best bets for financial need

Over half of the schools, 47, are free to apply to. Twelve have 40% or more freshman receiving Pell Grants with another 22 having percentages between 30 and 39. Only 10 schools have less than 20% of freshman receiving Pell Grants. However, this doesn’t mean these schools are good bets for need-based aid. Only two schools, Beloit and Centenary have an average net price of less than $10,000 for students with family incomes under $30,000. Twenty-one of the colleges had average net prices over $20,000 for this income category.

Of course, there are no guarantees these colleges will offer you a merit based scholarship–it’s all based on averages after all. But with 76 possibilities, surely one or two will meet your basic requirements and will be worth a try. (The following list is based on information available in the DIY College Rankings Search Spreadsheet.)

76 Best Bet Schools for College Merit Scholarships

Name	State	Full-time Under-graduates	4 yr Grad-uation Rate	% Admitted	% Freshman Receiving Institutional Grants	Avg Amount of Institutional Grants for Freshman	Under-graduate Application Fee
Mills College	CA	566	57	91	99	$14,762	$50
University of Redlands	CA	2,424	63	69	97	$33,165	$50
Westmont College	CA	1,224	71	70	100	$28,752	$0
Nova Southeastern University	FL	5,366	54	76	100	$17,892	$50
Rollins College	FL	2,456	74	61	92	$29,532	$50
Stetson University	FL	3,082	57	81	100	$31,996	$50
Berry College	GA	1,982	63	77	100	$23,120	$0
The College of Idaho	ID	1,085	59	48	100	$22,621	$0
Dominican University	IL	2,001	53	76	100	$18,987	$25
Elmhurst University	IL	2,687	58	66	100	$21,627	$0
Illinois College	IL	1,129	63	75	100	$21,219	$0
Knox College	IL	1,119	61	71	99	$34,402	$0
Lake Forest College	IL	1,526	69	58	98	$31,860	$0
Lewis University	IL	3,484	51	66	100	$19,527	$40
DePauw University	IN	1,719	85	68	99	$35,323	$0
Earlham College	IN	733	61	59	98	$33,740	$0
University of Evansville	IN	1,716	55	64	100	$25,025	$0
University of Indianapolis	IN	3,863	51	84	100	$18,044	$0
Valparaiso University	IN	2,678	56	87	100	$28,664	$0
Coe College	IA	1,356	55	80	100	$33,938	$30
Cornell College	IA	993	67	82	100	$31,082	$0
Luther College	IA	1,775	69	64	100	$30,129	$0
Wartburg College	IA	1,523	64	72	95	$29,471	$0
Bellarmine University	KY	2,369	55	82	100	$28,157	$25
Loyola University New Orleans	LA	2,955	50	72	99	$27,560	$0
Hood College	MD	1,132	50	71	99	$27,918	$0
Assumption University	MA	1,970	70	81	100	$25,798	$50
Bay Path University	MA	1,092	55	78	100	$23,159	$25
Clark University	MA	2,185	70	47	95	$25,625	$0
Gordon College	MA	1,390	65	68	100	$22,946	$50
Simmons University	MA	1,609	76	83	99	$29,514	$55
Wheaton College	MA	1,660	72	77	99	$40,124	$60
Albion College	MI	1,492	58	74	100	$38,910	$0
Cornerstone University	MI	1,024	54	87	97	$12,585	$0
Kalamazoo College	MI	1,426	72	74	98	$34,304	$0
University of Detroit Mercy	MI	2,214	59	79	100	$16,578	$0
Gustavus Adolphus College	MN	2,220	75	71	98	$28,809	$0
Hamline University	MN	1,861	55	69	100	$24,759	$0
Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota	MN	1,052	59	84	100	$23,774	$25
Rockhurst University	MO	1,845	66	73	100	$29,777	$0
Saint Louis University	MO	6,847	73	56	98	$32,545	$0
Creighton University	NE	4,330	71	64	100	$23,260	$0
Saint Anselm College	NH	2,005	81	76	100	$27,085	$50
Centenary University	NJ	1,032	50	93	98	$19,998	$0
Drew University	NJ	1,603	64	73	97	$24,499	$40
Fairleigh Dickinson University-Florham Campus	NJ	2,517	53	86	100	$29,478	$50
Seton Hall University	NJ	5,724	65	78	99	$22,988	$55
Canisius College	NY	1,915	64	76	99	$16,953	$0
Clarkson University	NY	2,845	63	78	100	$36,967	$50
Le Moyne College	NY	2,369	70	75	100	$22,707	$0
Niagara University	NY	2,654	71	92	100	$23,774	$0
Siena College	NY	3,200	76	81	96	$26,415	$50
Marietta College	OH	1,110	50	74	100	$26,649	$0
Ohio Wesleyan University	OH	1,418	60	68	100	$33,592	$0
The College of Wooster	OH	1,921	70	65	99	$36,634	$0
University of Dayton	OH	8,314	63	81	95	$26,818	$0
University of Tulsa	OK	2,819	56	69	99	$31,172	$50
DeSales University	PA	1,930	56	82	99	$22,671	$0
Gannon University	PA	2,723	54	79	91	$21,852	$25
Juniata College	PA	1,264	70	67	100	$34,595	$0
Ursinus College	PA	1,484	71	80	100	$36,625	$0
Rhodes College	TN	1,788	79	51	94	$32,312	$0
Abilene Christian University	TX	3,297	53	63	99	$20,396	$50
Austin College	TX	1,281	66	49	100	$28,749	$0
Saint Edward’s University	TX	2,820	55	91	98	$28,287	$50
University of Dallas	TX	1,424	62	54	100	$28,325	$50
Westminster College	UT	1,345	57	87	100	$21,359	$0
Saint Michael’s College	VT	1,492	72	88	100	$29,626	$50
Regent University	VA	2,376	50	50	99	$10,286	$50
Saint Martin’s University	WA	1,253	50	94	99	$23,807	$0
Whitworth University	WA	2,307	66	91	99	$29,393	$0
Beloit College	WI	924	68	58	98	$37,638	$0
Lawrence University	WI	1,393	63	69	100	$33,869	$0
Northland College	WI	545	50	64	100	$26,705	$0
Ripon College	WI	801	60	74	100	$31,125	$30
Saint Norbert College	WI	1,851	69	84	100	$21,761	$0

 

CONNECT WITH OTHER PARENTS PLANNING FOR COLLEGE
JOIN THE COFFEE CUP COLLEGE PLANNING FACEBOOK GROUP