…and other top need based schools? I know Princeton is known to be the most generous as well as Williams College, even for some upper middle class families. I haven’t heard about Brown though.
I would say maybe Brown is the least generous among Ivies, even lower than Cornell.
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FWIW, when we ran the NPCs, we found Cornell to be the least generous of the Ivies. Brown was in the middle. Princeton/Harvard were the best.
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Princeton definitely would be best after their new announcement, best for middle class family income less than 250K
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I wouldn’t describe it quite like that, and remember that much of Cornell is state funded.
Brown does not have nearly the same riches as Princeton or Williams (the question is why Harvard and Yale aren’t as generous as Princeton!). They are in a situation where, to afford to be generous to the neediest - and IMO the are - they can’t afford to be generous to the slightly better off. The reality is that Brown has a huge middle class doughnut hole. It’s not greed. it’s just how the math works out if they want to increase access to more underprivileged kids.
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The best way to know for yourself is to run the net price calculators for all of these schools…and see what you get.
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With all the discussion on fewer international students, it’ll be interesting to see if they accept more full pay domestic kids to offset those losses.
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The former Wharton admissions guy said as much in his podcast. Not about Brown; about everyone.
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Yup. Brown’s endowment is $7B (by far the lowest among Ivies) for ~11K students. Princeton’s is $34B for ~9K students.
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The short answer is Brown tends to be worse than typical for Ivies. More detailed stats are below, based on students in fed database. I listed median of past 3 years.
Average net price for students receiving grant aid
Brown – $27k
Penn – $26k
Cornell – $26k
Columbia – $21k
Yale – $21k
Princeton – $20k
Dartmouth – $19k
Harvard – $18k
Average cost for students with $75k to $110k income
Penn – $23k
Brown – $20k
Cornell – $20k
Dartmouth – $17k
Columbia – $15k
Harvard – $14k
Princeton – $14k
Yale – $14k
Average cost for students with $48k to $75k income
Penn – $11k
Brown – $8k
Cornell – $8k
Princeton – $7k
Dartmouth – $6k
Columbia – $5k
Yale – $5k
Harvard – $2k
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Interesting data! Thank you!
Welp, I ran the NPC at a few schools. Princeton came in around 55K and Brown came in at full pay. I guess I have my answer.
If your student is super-interested in Brown, I would suggest applying anyhow and then taking to financial aid officer after admittance, especially if your kid has another admittance with better financial aid from another Ivy or MIT or Stanford (peer schools).
My son was a Brown student and we appealed our initial financial aid offer and they asked if we had offers from their peer schools so they could review and see if they had overlooked anything that the other schools took into consideration.
And we also had a one-on-one meeting with a financial aid officer who actually brainstormed with us on family financial issues that we might have overlooked and that would qualify us for additional aid.
and as I recall, you posted earlier about your irrevocable trust. This seems to me like something that a financial aid officer (anywhere, not just at brown) might take into consideration after admission as part of a professional judgment review.
Of course, you could also always make an appointment with a financial aid officer now and ask them about the trust and if they would consider a review based on the details . If you do this, make sure to make an appointment, not just ask the person who answers the phone who are often students who only know basic information, which this clearly is not.
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I agree with this. We have friends who were able to get a better offer. Brown didn’t meet the Princeton offer (you just can’t expect that, as I said, the math just doesn’t work), but they made it low enough that the student was able to make it work and did choose Brown over Princeton.
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Great advice, thank you. At this point I am trying to gage weather even to encourage my kid to consider these schools.
We have been hunting for schools with merit aid until now, but she has the profile to be a contender (for a lottery ticket) at one of these schools, so I go back and forth about whether she should at least try. Brown seems like the best fit of all the top name brand schools. She has a strong legacy at Princeton, but she is turned off by the stress culture that she has heard about at Princeton (and Cornell).
I will reach out to a financial aid officer first before I talk with her about considering Brown.
Seems like if she does decide to pursue Brown, applying to Princeton as well may make sense just to have it as financial aid leverage if she gets into both.
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I have thought of this, for sure. I know Princeton has a pretty lengthy application so it will have to be up to her to decide if she thinks it’s worth it.
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Being quite familiar with both (and getting to know Brown) I don’t think that is true of Princeton. Kids are type A and I describe it as “grindy,” and a little intellectually intense, but the culture is overwhelmingly collaborative and the kids a quite nice and supportive of each other. Still, it wasn’t the best fit for my more laid back child, who is bright and hard working, but just wants to get it done so she can go do other things she enjoys more. This one is very happy at Brown!
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When my S was accepted to Brown a few years ago we didn’t have other Ivy schools with which to compare. However, the financial aid offered was significantly lower than some others we received. When we did an appeal Brown did increase the financial aid offer but not enough to make it worth it for us.
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She sounds exactly like my daughter! She wants to go somewhere with challenging academics but was clear that she also wants to have lots of time to do activities outside of academics. Good work, life balance, as she put it. Brown sounds fantastic for this, but alas, I am doubtful we could afford it. William & Mary, and Lafayette College are at the top of the list right now and would probably in closer to our budget, given the chance of merit or overall cost to begin with.