65 Colleges That Give Generous Aid to International Students

What Major Best Fits Your Personality? Find out here.

Update 4/3/2015: Still need financial aid? Find more great sources of financial aid for international students in my latest post 121 of the Best Merit Scholarships Open to International Students.

Are you an international student? Do you need financial aid?

Sorry. It’s a tough spot to be in.

Many colleges don’t offer any aid to international students and scholarships from independent organizations are limited.

What else can you do?

Refine your college list.

Not every college offers good options, but there are a number of great colleges and universities that give away millions of dollars every year to help international students each year.

How do you find out about them?

I’ve done the work for you. After scouring hundreds of college websites, I’ve put together a list of 65 schools that stand out by offering generous aid to international students.

Here are the results:

Full Tuition Merit Scholarship Schools

These scholarships offer full tuition scholarships to international applicants based on student merit. Students apply for these scholarships at the time of their application.

Carleton College – Northfield, Minnesota

Full Tuition Scholarship (up to six per year)

Carleton also gives away partial tuition scholarship. In total, Carleton gave 26 international students aid last year totaling $2,589,268.

Rice University – Houston, Texas

Allen International Scholarship

Rice students are also eligible for need-based aid. Rice gave away $1,828,575 in aid last year to 75 international students.

University of Miami – Coral Gables, Florida

Premier Scholarship

The University of Miami also offers partial tuition merit-based scholarships. Last year the school gave away $3,318,202 to 118 international students.

Washington and Lee University – Lexington, Virginia

Johnson Scholarship

Washington and Lee University also offers need-based aid. Washington and Lee gave away $3,640,194 last year to 73 international students.

Need Blind Schools Committed to Meeting 100% of Demonstrated Need

These schools do not consider your ability to pay as a factor in your admissions decision. Once you are accepted, they will cover your full need whether that be a partial scholarship or full tuition.

Harvard University – Cambridge, Massachusetts

530 students, $27,866,340

Yale University – New Haven, Connecticut

350 students, $18,639,436

Princeton University – Princeton, New Jersey

409 students, $16,397,219

Massachusetts Institute of Technology – Cambridge, MA

374 students, $16,854,797

Dartmouth College – Hanover, New Hampshire (UPDATE 9/21/2015: Dartmouth has just announced it will no longer be need blind for international students beginning with the Class of 2020. Likely Dartmouth will still offer some of the best aid for international students, but it can no longer technically be considered need blind.)

251 students, $12,279,562

Amherst College – Northampton, Massachusetts

146 students, $7,655,287

Other schools with generous aid for international students

These schools give away millions of dollars each year to help international students. Most of these schools will take your ability to pay into account in the admissions process but once accepted, these schools offer highly qualified applicants generous aid packages ranging from partial tuition scholarships to full tuition grants.

Bard College – Annandale-on-Hudson, New York

196 students, $7,617,880 total

Bates College – Lewiston, Maine

84 students, $4,081,959 total

Beloit College – Beloit, Wisconsin

111 students, $2,143,021 total

Bennington College – Bennington, Vermont

46 students, $2,024,000 total

Brown University – Providence, Rhode Island

207 students, $8,400,000 total

Bryn Mawr College – Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania

157 students, $6,179,834 total

California Institute of Technology – Pasadena, California

26 students, $1,124,845 total

Clark University – Worcester, Massachusetts

165 students, $3,993,130 total

Colby College – Waterville, Maine

82 students, $3,957,995 total

Colgate College – Hamilton, New York

114 students, $5,360,736 total

College of the Atlantic – Bar Harbor, Maine

52 students, $2,164,213 total

Colorado College – Colorado Springs, Colorado

70 students, $3,155,913 total

Connecticut College – New London, Connecticut

57 students, $2,747,848 total

Denison University – Granville, Ohio

153 students, $3,879,380 total

DePauw University – Greencastle, Indiana

$5,090,458 total

Dickinson College – Carlisle, Pennsylvania

133 students, $4,429,897 total

Franklin and Marshall College – Lancaster, Pennsylvania

159 students, $5,951,714 total

Grinnell College – Grinnell, Iowa

157 students, $5,655,157 total

Hamilton College – Clinton, New York

66 students, $2,975,464 total

Hampshire College – Amherst, Massachusetts

87 students, $1,924,573 total

Hendrix College – Conway, Arkansas

$1,687,347 total

Illinois Institute of Technology – Chicago, Illinois

592 students, $10,703,818 total

Kenyon College – Gambier, Ohio

58 students, $2,304,722 total

Knox College – Galesburg, Illinois

$2,976,508 total

Lafayette College – Easton, Pennsylvania

103 students, $3,859,836 total

Lawrence University – Appleton, Wisconsin

110 students, $2,222,784 total

Macalester College – St Paul, MN

222 students, $7,647, 111 total

Middlebury College – Middlebury, Vermont

129 students, $6,313,628 total

Mount Holyoke College – South Hadley, Massachusetts

448 students, $15,480,183 total

Oberlin College – Oberlin, Ohio

146 students, $4,343,742 total

Ohio Wesleyan University – Delaware, Ohio

149 students, $3,368,998 total

Reed College – Portland, Oregon

45 students, $2,080,424 total

Sarah Lawrence College – Bronxville, New York

$2,592,487 total

Skidmore College – Saratoga Springs, New York

80 students, $4,281,849 total

Smith College – Northampton, Massachusetts

168 students, $7,339,206 total

Soka University of America – Aliso Viego, California

164 students, $5,308,880 total

St. John’s College – Annapolis – Annapolis, Maryland

39 students, $1,229,271 total

St. Lawrence University – Canton, New York

155 students, $5,939,516 total

St. Olaf College – Northfield, Minnesota

$5,309,947 total

Stanford University – Stanford, California

187 students, $9,088,919 total

Swarthmore College – Swarthmore, Pennsylvania

56 students, $2,604,476 total

Trinity College – Hartford, Connecticut

146 students, $7,446,464 total

Union College – Schenectady, New York

82 students, $2,706,410 total

University of Pennsylvania – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

332 students, $14,245,353 total

University of Richmond – Richmond, Virginia

128 students, $5,628,674 total

University of Rochester – Rochester, New York

328 students, $6,538,139 total

University of Southern California – Los Angeles, California

221 students, $4,254,535 total

Vassar College – Poughkeepsie, New York

92 students, $4,445,049 total

Wabash College – Crawfordsville, Indiana

53 students, $936,950 total

Wellesley College – Wellesley, Massachusetts

114 students, $5,417,075 total

Wesleyan University – Middleton, Connecticut

83 students, $4,270,370 total

Wheaton College (MA) – Norton, Massachusetts

103 students, $2,344,486 total

Williams College – Williamstown, Massachusetts

80 students, $4,373,650 total

Worcester Polytechnic Institute – Worcester, Massachusetts

350 students, $8,148,755 total

Yeshiva University – New York, New York

133 students, $3,209,689 total

Hopefully this list provides you with a good place to start in your college search. There are a number of other schools that also offer substantial aid to international students.

Check as many college websites as you can and contact the financial aid departments directly to ask questions.

There is a lot of aid out there available, and if you look hard enough, there is a good chance you’ll be able to find some!

If you want to find out more about how to apply to college as an international student, check out my book The International Student’s Guide to American Colleges.

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