These Are the 10 Best Colleges for Merit Aid, With an Average Grant of $22,000 a Year

Your chances of scoring scholarship money for college are probably higher than you think—if you apply to the right schools.


Nearly 8 in 10 undergraduates at private colleges received financial aid from their school in 2017-2018, according to an annual study from the National Association of College and University Business Officers. Many of those institutional scholarships are classified as merit aid, a catchall term for any aid that’s not based on financial need.