NEW YORK, August 1, 2011 - The Princeton Review - known for its education services helping students choose and get in to colleges - has created several resources to help applicants and parents find the financial aid many of them will need to pay for college this year.

Among the resources are Financial Aid Ratings - unique scores that The Princeton Review has tallied for 613 colleges based on its data from its surveys of administrators at hundreds of schools in 2010-11 of student aid recipients attending the schools.

The ratings appear in the profiles of the schools that posted today onwww.PrincetonReview.com. The ratings are also in the profiles of those schools in the new 2011 editions of two Princeton Review guidebooks: "The Best 373 Colleges" ($22.99) and "Complete Book of Colleges" ($26.99) on sale August 2, and published by Random House.

The Princeton Review's institutional survey for the ratings included questions on: the percentage of the school's students determined to have need who received aid, the percentage of need met, and the percentage of students whose aid was fully met. The rating tallies also factored in data from the Company's surveys of students attending the schools about their satisfaction with their aid awards.

The Princeton Review's "2011 Financial Aid Rating Honor Roll"

The Princeton Review also today named 10 colleges to its "2012 Financial Aid Rating Honor Roll" - a list saluting the colleges that received the highest possible score (99) in its Financial Aid Rating tallies this year. Published in "The Best 376 Colleges" guidebook and on the Company's website, the list includes:

(in alphabetical order)

  • Carleton College (Northfield MN)
  • Claremont McKenna College(Claremont CA)
  • Columbia University (New York NY)
  • Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering (Needham MA)
  • Pomona College (Claremont CA)
  • Princeton University (Princeton NJ)
  • Swarthmore College (Swarthmore PA)
  • Thomas Aquinas College (Santa Paula CA)
  • Vassar College (Poughkeepsie NY)
  • Yale University (New Haven CT)

Said Robert Franek, Princeton Review Senior VP / Publishing, "We commend these schools for all they have done to meet the financial aid needs of their students. We also encourage applicants always to get current information about a school's financial aid offerings and never to cross a school off their list because of its sticker price: sometimes the most expensive colleges are the most generous with their grants and aid."

Franek noted the deep concerns families have about college costs. Among 12,000 college applicants and parents of applicants The Princeton Review surveyed in 2011 for its annual "College Hopes & Worries Survey," 72% of respondents said that the state of the economy had affected their college choices and 86% said financial aid will be "very necessary." In other findings, the respondents' biggest worry about their college applications was that they/their child "would get in to their first choice college, but not have sufficient funds to attend it."

Additional financial aid resources in Princeton Review's "The Best 376 Colleges" include:

  • A list of top 20 ranking schools for "Great Financial Aid"
    This list names schools in the book at which students surveyed reported the highest levels of satisfaction with their aid award packages. The book also has a corollary list, "Financial Aid Not So Great." Both are posted at www.princetonreview.com/college-rankings.aspx
  • A list of "100 Best Value Colleges for 2011"
    This list identifies 50 public and 50 private colleges that The Princeton Review named as best values based on more than 30 data points covering academics, cost, and financial aid. The Company teamed up with USA TODAY for this project and reported the list in February 2011. It is accessible at www.princetonreview.com/best-value-colleges.aspxand www.bestvaluecolleges.usatoday.com.
  • Advice: "26 Tips for Getting Financial Aid, Scholarships & Grants, and for Paying Less for College"
    This timely advice section in the book is by Kalman Chany, author of The Princeton Review's annually updated guide, "Paying for College Without Going Broke."

Source: The Princeton Review