by Nick Selbe
For America’s current high school students, higher education has never come with a bigger price tag. The average cost of tuition has been on the rise, just as the median household income experiences a steady decline.
For these reasons, college students rely more heavily on financial relief, particularly in the form of grant aids. Some schools are extremely generous with grant aids, while others leave much to be desired.
Using the most recent data from the U.S. Department of Education, StartClass has identified the 25 colleges whose students receive the least amount of financial relief. To do this, we relied upon a variety of factors.
First, we calculated each school’s “effective tuition.” This takes into account the percentage of resident and nonresident students for public schools and the amount of in-state and out-of-state tuition they pay. We then took the average grant aid amount each school gave to each student and divided it by the effective tuition to find the “percent of tuition granted” for each school.
The percent of tuition granted and the percent of undergraduates receiving grant aid were given equal weighting to calculate each school’s “composite grant score.” Schools are ranked according to their composite grant score, from highest to lowest. The last college on the list is the school that offers the least amount of grant aid to its students relative to the effective cost of tuition.
*Note: Tuition data comes from the 2014-2015 school year. Financial aid data comes from the 2013-2014 school year. For this list, only colleges with at least 5,000 students and a Smart Rating of 80 or higher were included. For more information on our Smart Rating system, click here. Further, of the 427 schools with a Smart Rating of 80 and at least 5,000 students, 51 were not included in the study due to a lack of student residency data. This prevented us from calculating the effective tuition for every school.
#25. University of Wisconsin-Whitewater
Effective tuition: $9,039
Percent of tuition granted: 53.1 percent
Percent of undergrads receiving aid: 43 percent
Composite score: 48
#24. Ohio University
Effective tuition: $11,751
Percent of tuition granted: 52.6 percent
Percent of undergrads receiving aid: 43 percent
Composite score: 47.8
#23. Saint Leo University
Effective tuition: $20,420
Percent of tuition granted: 34.2 percent
Percent of undergrads receiving aid: 61 percent
Composite score: 47.6
#22. University of Wisconsin-Platteville
Effective tuition: $9,384
Percent of tuition granted: 48.7 percent
Percent of undergrads receiving aid: 46 percent
Composite score: 47.3
#21. Eastern Connecticut State University
Effective tuition: $10,594
Percent of tuition granted: 49.4 percent
Percent of undergrads receiving aid: 45 percent
Composite score: 47.2
#20. Elon University
Effective tuition: $31,247
Percent of tuition granted: 37.6 percent
Percent of undergrads receiving aid: 56 percent
Composite score: 46.8
#19. University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire
Effective tuition: $11,091
Percent of tuition granted: 44.3 percent
Percent of undergrads receiving aid: 47 percent
Composite score: 45.6
#18. University of Kansas
Effective tuition: $15,950
Percent of tuition granted: 40.1 percent
Percent of undergrads receiving aid: 51 percent
Composite score: 45.5
#17. Columbia College-Chicago
Effective tuition: $23,544
Percent of tuition granted: 35.8 percent
Percent of undergrads receiving aid: 55 percent
Composite score: 45.4
#16. George Mason University
Effective tuition: $13,595
Percent of tuition granted: 48.6 percent
Percent of undergrads receiving aid: 42 percent
Composite score: 45.3
#15. Christopher Newport University
Effective tuition: $12,136
Percent of tuition granted: 38.5 percent
Percent of undergrads receiving aid: 52 percent
Composite score: 45.3
#14. University of Wisconsin-Madison
Effective tuition: $16,748
Percent of tuition granted: 45.4 percent
Percent of undergrads receiving aid: 45 percent
Composite score: 45.2
#13. LIU Post
Effective tuition: $34,852
Percent of tuition granted: 45.1 percent
Percent of undergrads receiving aid: 45 percent
Composite score: 45.1
#12. Regis University
Effective tuition: $33,060
Percent of tuition granted: 38.4 percent
Percent of undergrads receiving aid: 51 percent
Composite score: 44.7
#11. West Chester University of Pennsylvania
Effective tuition: $11,130
Percent of tuition granted: 47.5 percent
Percent of undergrads receiving aid: 41 percent
Composite score: 48
#10. North Dakota State University
Effective tuition: $14,999
Percent of tuition granted: 31.7 percent
Percent of undergrads receiving aid: 56 percent
Composite score: 43.8
#9. East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania
Effective tuition: $12,511
Percent of tuition granted: 41.5 percent
Percent of undergrads receiving aid: 46 percent
Composite score: 43.8
#8. Hawaii Pacific University
Effective tuition: $21,130
Percent of tuition granted: 33.1 percent
Percent of undergrads receiving aid: 54 percent
Composite score: 43.5
#7. University of Oregon
Effective tuition: $20,613
Percent of tuition granted: 35.3 percent
Percent of undergrads receiving aid: 50 percent
Composite score: 42.7
#6. University of Colorado Boulder
Effective tuition: $20,628
Percent of tuition granted: 45.3 percent
Percent of undergrads receiving aid: 40 percent
Composite score: 42.7
#5. University of Wisconsin-Stout
Effective tuition: $11,891
Percent of tuition granted: 39.3 percent
Percent of undergrads receiving aid: 45 percent
Composite score: 42.1
#4. University of Wisconsin-La Crosse
Effective tuition: $10,310
Percent of tuition granted: 43.6 percent
Percent of undergrads receiving aid: 40 percent
Composite score: 41.8
#3. University of Wisconsin-River Falls
Effective tuition: $11,765
Percent of tuition granted: 38.2 percent
Percent of undergrads receiving aid: 45 percent
Composite score: 41.6
#2. University of North Dakota
Effective tuition: $14,569
Percent of tuition granted: 30.4 percent
Percent of undergrads receiving aid: 52 percent
Composite score: 41.2
#1. Illinois State University
Effective tuition: $12,840
Percent of tuition granted: 30.5 percent
Percent of undergrads receiving aid: 45 percent
Composite score: 37.8
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