“Food for thought–why do some schools offer merit aid while others do not? It rarely has to do with endowment or finances.”
I don’t know if I’d go that far. The highest-endowed schools are often not the most generous, but all expenditures have to do with endowment and finances. Grinnell is able to be generous with both need-based and merit aid in a way many schools could not without sacrificing academic resources.