<p>Corrections needed. </p>
<p>Jack - your facts at a bit off. Carleton is one of the few schools that guarantees to meet demonstrated need and that includes guaranteeing to adjust need during one’s college years. Their financial aid has always been about as good as it gets. If family income drops during one’s 4 years at Carleton or a sibling heads off to college, Carleton will adjust up their aid package to meet that increased need.</p>
<p>Guaranteeing to meet financial need is a separate issue from being need blind. Carleton’s biggest problem is that even when need aware to 0-10% of applicants in any given admissions cycle, it STILL supports MORE students with financial aid than almost any other selective college including “need blind” LACs like Williams and Swarthmore and wealthy Midwestern uni neighbors like Northwestern, Chicago and Wash U. </p>
<p>Why? It probably says something about the students drawn to the school. Not a lot of east coast boarding school Trust fund offspring flood this campus. Without the ability to levy some need aware protection, there are few colleges that could handle this sort of unique challenge Carleton faces to its endowment. Grinnell, BTW, despite offering merit aid, last year only temporarily shelved a proposal to itself become need aware. It plans to re-address this question again next year. </p>