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15 Colleges Making Student Loans Obsolete

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Noodle Staff February 8, 2019

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**There's a refreshing new trend among some of the country's most elite liberal arts schools: making the need for student loans obsolete.

More and more schools, such as Franklin and Marshall are capping the amount of student loans students will need to take out at amounts like $10,000 or $25,000 over the course of 4 years. The Project on Student Debt has a list of over 50 schools that have taken a pledge to reduce student debt.

From this list, we found 15 schools who are taking this a step further and working to eliminate the need for students loans among all of its students, replacing them with grants aid that don't have to be paid back and work study opportunities. These will bridge the gap between a family's EFC and the total cost of tuition, books, room and board, and travel expenses. The Project on Student Debt has a list of over 50 schools that have taken a pledge to reduce student debt

What's an EFC?

The EFC is a student's Expected Family Contribution, which represents the total amount that parents and students are expected to contribute to the cost of college based on their income and assets. For example, dependant students coming from families with an income of $80,000 are expected to contribute $19,538 while those with family incomes of $200,000 would be expected to cover $90,083 on average. You can learn more about it at the Project on Student Debt or check out the averages here.**