10 Colleges That Don’t Require Student Loans

A college or university that includes a liberal allotment of loans in its financial aid package isn’t doing you any favors.

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A college or university that includes a liberal allotment of loans in its financial aid package isn’t doing you any favors. After all, you’ll have to repay that money, which isn’t the case with grants and scholarships.

In recent years, though, about six dozen schools have adopted “no-loan” policies whereby grants replace loans in their financial aid packages. Some colleges limit no-loan packages to students whose family income falls below specific levels (such as $60,000 a year). Others have eliminated loans for all students who are eligible for financial aid.

The programs don’t necessarily eliminate loans altogether. The financial aid package is based on a school’s estimate of what the family can afford to pay. Some families can’t or choose not to pay the full amount, which means the student must borrow to make up the difference. And some students borrow to cover costs that aren’t included in the budget covered by their financial aid packages, such as health insurance and laptop computers.

At no-loan schools, the percentage of students that borrow is much smaller, and those that graduate with loans have balances that are below the national average. The 10 schools on this list exclude loans from all financial-aid packages, with no income thresholds. Take a look.

Sandra Block
Senior Editor, Kiplinger's Personal Finance

Block joined Kiplinger in June 2012 from USA Today, where she was a reporter and personal finance columnist for more than 15 years. Prior to that, she worked for the Akron Beacon-Journal and Dow Jones Newswires. In 1993, she was a Knight-Bagehot fellow in economics and business journalism at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She has a BA in communications from Bethany College in Bethany, W.Va.