Patience, all - update on 2024-25 FAFSA

[AustenNut]

It wasn’t me, but it looks like @Mwfan1921 found what you were looking for. I have posted information that looks like this, however:

@AustenNut

If “meets full need” schools meant something, one would expect that if a school meets 100% of demonstrated need, that it would cost less for students from similar financial situtations than a school that does not meet 100% of need. That, however, is not the case.

In December 2022 I did some research (post here) for a student who needed significant financial assistance. Here is the list of schools that I researched, sorted by percentage of need met (as listed in College Board’s profile for that school):

School	% Need Met	Net price for $0-30k	Net Price for $30-48k
Occidental	100%	$13,983	$13,285
Pitzer	100%	$985	$4,759
Stanford	100%	$0	$0
Whitman	94%	$14,774	$18,861
Santa Clara	89%	$23,618	$27,708
U. of Puget Sound	88%	$9,749	$12,232
U. of Redlands	83%	$13,981	$12,984
Whittier	82%	$14,301	$13,280
Pepperdine	76%	$28,304	$26,285
Willamette	75%	$25,081	$24,078
U. of the Pacific	71%	$10,439	$13,200
U. of San Francisco	71%	$30,235	$30,787
Loyola Marymount	70%	$28,383	$22,329

Here is that same list of schools, sorted from lowest net price for families earning $0-30k to highest:

School	% Need Met	Net price for $0-30k	Net Price for $30-48k
Stanford	100%	$0	$0
Pitzer	100%	$985	$4,759
U. of Puget Sound	88%	$9,749	$12,232
U. of the Pacific	71%	$10,439	$13,200
U. of Redlands	83%	$13,981	$12,984
Occidental	100%	$13,983	$13,285
Whittier	82%	$14,301	$13,280
Whitman	94%	$14,774	$18,861
Santa Clara	89%	$23,618	$27,708
Willamette	75%	$25,081	$24,078
Pepperdine	76%	$28,304	$26,285
Loyola Marymount	70%	$28,383	$22,329
U. of San Francisco	71%	$30,235	$30,787

One can see that there are three schools (meeting between 71-88% of need) that have lower net prices than one of the 100% need met schools. There are two schools that meet 82% & 94% that are right behind the price of that 100% need-met school, too. U. of the Pacific, which only meets “71%” of need had a lower net price than seven other schools that meet a greater percentage of “need.”

All in all, I used to think that the percentage of need met meant something, but not anymore.