We’re committed to making an Amherst education affordable to every admitted student.
Under our need-blind admission policy, your family’s financial circumstances will never affect whether you’re admitted or not.
With our generous, no-loan financial aid packages, the majority of our students pay less—often far less—than the cost of attendance.
Our financial aid program is well known as one of the country’s best. Here’s why:
- Amherst is need-blind for both domestic and international applicants.
No matter where in the world you live, no matter what your citizenship status, Amherst will make your admission decision without considering whether you apply for aid or to what degree you have financial need. - Amherst meets the full demonstrated need of every admitted student.
If your family shows that it can pay only a small portion of tuition and costs—or maybe none at all—Amherst pays the rest. - Amherst offers generous scholarships.
In 2020-21, Amherst provided more than $58 million in scholarship aid to our students and the average financial aid award was more than $58,000. - Amherst students can graduate debt-free.
In our financial aid packages, we’ve replaced all loans with scholarship grants, making Amherst one of the few colleges and universities in the country that do not require students to take on student loans in order to pay for their undergraduate educations. - Amherst has a strong commitment to enrolling U.S. veterans.
Amherst participates in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Yellow Ribbon Program without caps on the number of Yellow Ribbon spaces or contribution per student. - Amherst partners with QuestBridge.
QuestBridge is an organization that connects talented, low-income students to elite colleges and universities. Amherst is one of QuestBridge's original college partners and QuestBridge students make up over 10% of our student body.