Ok, I can't really answer that fully, and definitely not in the first post. So let's start with: how have prices and expenditures at liberal arts colleges changed over the last 20 years?
This is interesting. I think that "financial aid" includes both need-based and merit-based aid. The low fraction of full-pay students at Top 51-100 colleges reflects heavy competition for students with lots of merit based discounts, while top 10 colleges do not need to do nearly as much discounting.
Yes, you're right, financial aid includes both need-based and merit-based aid, and you're also right that top colleges have competed for full pay students using merit-based aid. Merit aid has fallen out of fashion in recent years as schools say they want to pursue equity, but I don't know how much they've actually followed through on that statement.
The data that colleges are required to report to the government (through IPEDS and through their tax returns) does not distinguish between merit- and need-based aid. Lucky for us, most colleges voluntarily submit additional data to the Common Data Set, and that DOES report non-need-based aid and DOES distinguish between athletic-based merit aid and non-athletic-based merit aid. Unlucky for us, I haven't been able to find a fully digitized version of those data. Instead, each college posts PDFs of the forms they submit to the CDS on their individual websites, for as many years as they choose to. For example, here's the website for my college: https://www.coloradocollege.edu/offices/ipe/common-data-set.html This summer I've been working with an RA to collect all the of the forms these top 100 colleges have already posted on their websites and digitize them into a usable dataset. Now we're emailing colleges to ask for the years they've chosen not to post. It's going pretty well.
This is a long way of saying: I complete agree merit aid is an important and interesting facet of how SLACs compete for students. Stay tuned for more.
This is interesting. I think that "financial aid" includes both need-based and merit-based aid. The low fraction of full-pay students at Top 51-100 colleges reflects heavy competition for students with lots of merit based discounts, while top 10 colleges do not need to do nearly as much discounting.
Thanks for commenting!
Yes, you're right, financial aid includes both need-based and merit-based aid, and you're also right that top colleges have competed for full pay students using merit-based aid. Merit aid has fallen out of fashion in recent years as schools say they want to pursue equity, but I don't know how much they've actually followed through on that statement.
The data that colleges are required to report to the government (through IPEDS and through their tax returns) does not distinguish between merit- and need-based aid. Lucky for us, most colleges voluntarily submit additional data to the Common Data Set, and that DOES report non-need-based aid and DOES distinguish between athletic-based merit aid and non-athletic-based merit aid. Unlucky for us, I haven't been able to find a fully digitized version of those data. Instead, each college posts PDFs of the forms they submit to the CDS on their individual websites, for as many years as they choose to. For example, here's the website for my college: https://www.coloradocollege.edu/offices/ipe/common-data-set.html This summer I've been working with an RA to collect all the of the forms these top 100 colleges have already posted on their websites and digitize them into a usable dataset. Now we're emailing colleges to ask for the years they've chosen not to post. It's going pretty well.
This is a long way of saying: I complete agree merit aid is an important and interesting facet of how SLACs compete for students. Stay tuned for more.
Did I miss it, or do you have a link to or list of the names of the colleges and their rankings?
Oops, yes, I did forget! Thanks for commenting and for pointing out this oversight.
The original dataset is here: https://andyreiter.com/datasets/
The Top 10 are:
Williams College
Amherst College
Swarthmore College
Wellesley College
Pomona College
Bowdoin College
Middlebury College
Carleton College
Haverford College
Davidson College
The next 11-25 are:
Claremont McKenna College
Washington and Lee University
Vassar College
Wesleyan University
Grinnell College
Smith College
Hamilton College
Harvey Mudd College
Colgate University
Colby College
Bates College
Oberlin College and Conservatory
Macalester College
Colorado College
Barnard College
The next 26-50 are:
Scripps College
University of Richmond
Mount Holyoke College
Kenyon College
Bucknell University
College of the Holy Cross
Trinity College
Lafayette College
Sewanee: The University of the South
Soka University of America
Whitman College
Union College
Franklin and Marshall College
Occidental College
Connecticut College
Skidmore College
Bard College
Dickinson College
Pitzer College
Furman University
Centre College
DePauw University
Gettysburg College
Rhodes College
The next 51-100 are:
Denison University
Sarah Lawrence College
Wabash College
St. Olaf College
Lawrence University
Wheaton College
St. Lawrence University
Agnes Scott College
Beloit College
Willamette University
Kalamazoo College
Reed College
College of Wooster
Wofford College
Illinois Wesleyan University
Hobart and William Smith College
Wheaton College
Berea College
Thomas Aquinas College
Spelman College
Muhlenberg College
Earlham College
Hillsdale College
Southwestern University
Knox College
Ursinus College
Gustavus Adolphus College
Lewis and Clark College
University of Puget Sound
Hendrix College
St. John's University
Allegheny College
Austin College
Transylvania University
College of St. Benedict
Luther College
Augustana College
Juniata College
Cornell College
Bennington College
Washington and Jefferson College
Saint Mary's College
Lake Forest College
St. John's College
Washington College
Principia College
St. John's College
College of the Atlantic
Antioch College
At some point I'm planning to do a post on how stable these rankings are over time. Would that be a post that would be interesting to you?