<p>Disclaimer - I did not look at College Navigator. </p>
<p>Our official EFC is 20 - 30K. Mudd, Caltech, & Rice all were within a few thousand dollars of each other for the COA we were expected to pay after need-based grants. I’m counting loans and workstudy in as “what we’re expected to pay”, and doing the calculations before NMF money. </p>
<p>All three of those schools “meet need”, but what the EFC/CSS/schools think you can pay is not usually the same as what YOU think you can pay. Mudd truly does meet need, according to the official definition of need and not the family’s definition of need. Most schools don’t “meet need” and would look even worse. A very few schools (some Ivies and MIT and and a few others) are exceptionally generous to people in the “middle” income brackets and give well beyond EFC/CSS “need” and would trounce Mudd and the like.</p>
<p>Mudd has a page on the treatment of outside money, which seems to be about the same as most of the better schools’ treatment of it. [Outside</a> Awards & Financial Aid Awards](<a href=“http://www.hmc.edu/admission1/costsandaid1/typesofaid1/scholarshipsandgrants1/outsideandprivateawards1/outsideawardsfinancialaidawards.html]Outside”>http://www.hmc.edu/admission1/costsandaid1/typesofaid1/scholarshipsandgrants1/outsideandprivateawards1/outsideawardsfinancialaidawards.html)</p>
<p>If you can get into Mudd, you can likely get substantial merit-based money at slightly lesser schools who want to attract more top-caliber students.</p>