Forbes releases 2019 private college financial health ranking

[Sue22]

Here’s the methodology page.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/cartercoudriet/2019/11/27/how-fit-is-your-school-the-methodology-behind-forbes-2019-college-financial-health-grades/#2ba54d3761c4

Re. @TomSrOfBoston’s comment,

From the methodology the rating seems to penalize colleges that give out institutional aid, that is to say colleges that serve lower income students. It rewards colleges that give out little institutional aid, those colleges with relatively few lower income students.

Forbes’ methodology:

Percent Freshman Getting Institutional Grants (7.5%): Turns out, giving out merit scholarships does not necessarily mean a school is well-endowed and generous; it may just be desperate. This figure measures the percentage of students getting discounts, otherwise known as institutional grants, to entice enrollment. Schools where the percent is less than 40%, like Wake Forest University and Tufts University, get full credit. Fordham University and Wofford College got half credit because 90% of their first-year students receive institutional grants.

While I’m a little confused about their numbers, it sounds like the idea is to ding schools that give out a lot of non need-based aid.

For instance Fordham only covers 77% of need, but they give merit or athletic scholarships to well over half of all students with no need at all. The average merit scholarship is around 20K and the average athletic scholarship is around 35K.

It does seem like what they used to assess this may be the overall percentage of students who received aid, whether it’s need-based or non need-based and that does seem like a mistake to me.