@hopedaisy Regarding Hope College, the top merit scholarship is the Trustee Scholarship for $22K per year. Hope College also lets you stack merit scholarships so my student’s total merit aid is $28K/year, which given a COA of $48K, puts our net COA close to our in state public schools.
Also I’m not sure what you mean by “moved so far away from its heritage of beliefs” and where you got that idea. If you mean no longer drawing heavily from the small RCA denomination that founded it in 1862, then that’s true. If you mean making chapel voluntary, then that’s true too. But if you mean Hope is diluting its Christian beliefs by being more ecumenical (such as welcoming our Catholic brothers and sisters in Christ) and seeking greater diversity, then I strongly disagree.
It’s funny because most people on CC aren’t familiar with Hope at all, but those who post about it almost always have accused it of being too conservative and overly religious. This accusation of being too woke (implied by your comment that Hope is trying to stay “relevant”) or having diluted its religious character is a new one for me.
While I’m on my Hope soapbox, let me point out that USNWR released its 2019 rankings of colleges and universities for undergraduate research and creative projects. They invited college presidents, chief academic officers, deans of students and deans of admissions from more than 1,500 schools to nominate up to 15 institutions with “stellar examples of undergraduate research/creative projects. Colleges and universities that received 10 or more nominations are ranked here.” Hope College tied for #23 with Swarthmore and Cornell. https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/undergrad-research-programs. My student got to participate in a 10 week paid research project sponsored by Hope during the summer BEFORE freshman year, including 4 weeks at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.