The northeastern part of the U.S. is well-known for its elite colleges. It may not be common knowledge, however, that most Ivy League universities, including Harvard College, Yale College and Princeton University, offer financial aid mostly in the form of grants to all students who are admitted. In other words, if you're good enough to enter an elite college, you automatically qualify for need-based grants.
In the south, the schools that offer the most grants include Arizona State University, the Georgia Institute of Technology, University of Florida and Vanderbilt University. According to Arizona State University, almost all its students, regardless of income, can qualify for some form of financial aid and about 70 percent receive financial support every year in the form of grants and loans. The school gives out about $117 million in scholarships and $65 million in grant funding to students each year.
In the Midwest, Michigan State University, the University of Chicago and the Northwestern University are among the schools that offer the most grants to their students. According to the Office of College Aid of the University of Chicago, all undergraduate students who aren't able to afford their college-related expenditures, including tuition, room and board, books and personal expenses, receive scholarship assistance and grants in amounts sufficient for them to cover those expenses.
The western universities that come on top in terms of their grant programs include Stanford University and the California Institute of Technology, and most of their grants are need-based. The California Institute of Technology offers a wide range of grants, including Cal Grants, the Academic Competitiveness Grant, National Science and Mathematics Access to Retain Talent Grants and National SMART Grants.