How good is the financial aid at Duke?

SBR
Tue, 15 Jun 2010 13:50:16 +0000

objobs:

Your whole argument regarding Brown centers on their commitment to socioeconomic diversity which is without a doubt better than Duke’s. But I would submit that endowment is a significant factor when schools implement FA. Brown (and Ivy League schools in general) tend to be anomalies in terms of FA. Looking at a list of schools ranked by endowment, there are many non-ivy schools who have greater endowments but worse FA programs. In this case, I would argue that Duke’s stance is actually more conventional Brown and that the trend is endowment size is generally a good predictor of FA (outside of the Ivies that is).

Edit: slow to see replies again

^ I would say that columbia’s FA is only slightly better than Duke’s and in terms of commitment far from Brown’s level despite an endowment of more than $7Billion.

From their FA website:


The median income of families receiving Columbia Grant is $83,487, but many families who earn as much as $200,000 a year can qualify for financial aid.
Parents earning $60,000 or less a year contribute $0 towards their children’s Columbia education.
Parents earning between $60,000 and $100,000 have substantially lowered contribution requirements.
Parents earning over $100,000 still can qualify for significant financial aid from Columbia.


The only significant thing I’d say that is better than Duke is that Columbia doesn’t give out loans. In that respect that extra couple of billion really helps.

Penn’s FA however, is very good, definitely better than Duke’s.

As for graduate students. I have to say that I don’t believe that they factor into FA all that much. A large part of many graduate students’ stipends actually come from their PIs many of whom pay for their graduate students from their own funding sources.