Grinnell is “need blind” in admissions, meaning that it doesn’t take financial considerations into account when admitting students. It also pledges to meet the full financial need of students with grants and a relatively small amount of federal loans.
These policies have proven to be extremely expensive for a college that admits such a large share of low-income students, enrolls far fewer “full-pay” students than many of its peers, and generates considerably less in philanthropic support that can be spent on need-based financial aid. Worried that these practices were not sustainable, the college’s Board of Trustees created a stir on campus when it considered abandoning the institution’s need-blind policy in 2012.