How is financial aid determined at Dartmouth?

Aid is determined solely by need — income and asset information from the student and parents, without regard to academic merit, test scores, athletic ability, or other talents. Dartmouth's published commitment is that its financial aid 'covers 100% of the demonstrated need of all its students,' with no required student loans in the package.

Are there any non-need scholarships at all for undergraduates?

No undergraduate institutional merit, talent, or athletic scholarships exist at Dartmouth. (Some graduate and professional programs do offer merit aid, but that is separate from undergraduate admission.) Outside scholarships from third parties are allowed and encouraged, but Dartmouth itself awards only need-based aid.

Will winning an outside scholarship cost me my Dartmouth aid?

Outside scholarships first replace your leave-term earnings, employment expectation, and any optional loan — that part helps you. Only amounts that exceed what Dartmouth can replace 'will reduce Dartmouth Scholarship dollar-for-dollar,' and they can never reduce your calculated Parent Contribution.

Does Dartmouth meet full demonstrated need?

Yes. Dartmouth states its financial aid 'covers 100% of the demonstrated need of all its students,' and qualifying students receive a package that never includes a required student loan — need is met with student employment plus grant/scholarship funding.

Dartmouth College · New Hampshire

Dartmouth scholarships and merit aid

Dartmouth offers no merit scholarships — all institutional aid is need-based and meets 100% of demonstrated need: 'We do not offer any aid based on academic merit, artistic talent, athletic ability or other criteria.'

Verified May 20263 months ago

The short answer

Is Dartmouth worth a closer look?

We did not find a simple published award list to show for Dartmouth. Read our full reasoning before spending more time here.

Merit tiers0See who qualifies

First-year students with school awards0%First-year students, CDS 2024-2025

Research checkedMay 2026By our research team

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What families often miss

Assuming a top GPA or test score earns an academic scholarship at Dartmouth.
Dartmouth is explicit on its aid pages: 'Dartmouth scholarship funds are all based on financial need.' and 'We do not offer any aid based on academic merit, artistic talent, athletic ability or other criteria.' A high-stat student with no demonstrated need pays full sticker price, exactly like any other full-pay student.
Skipping outside scholarship applications because 'Dartmouth will just take it back.'
Outside awards first replace the student's leave-term earnings, employment expectation, and any optional loan — that portion is genuinely additive to the student. Only the amount that exceeds the replaceable self-help reduces the Dartmouth Scholarship grant. Small-to-moderate outside awards usually help the student's bottom line.
Comparing Dartmouth's sticker price to a merit school's net price without running the need calculation first.
Dartmouth meets 100% of demonstrated need with no required loans. For a family with real demonstrated need, Dartmouth's actual net price can land below schools that advertise large merit awards. Run Dartmouth's net price calculator before concluding it is unaffordable.

See costs and school data

Who this school may work for

Families whose income and assets generate meaningful demonstrated need on Dartmouth's calculation — those families get a no-loan package that covers 100% of need. Merit-hunters expecting an academic, talent, or athletic discount should look elsewhere; a high GPA or test score earns no price reduction here.

Cost of attendance$94,980 for 2025-2026Each bar is the full published cost for that scenario, sized against the highest figure so totals compare at a glance.

On-campus$94,980

$71K

$21K

Tuition & fees
Housing & food
Books
Personal

Official Dartmouth Financial Aid COA page; three-term annual figures. Fees combines fees line; Housing & food combines housing + food.

Dartmouth cost-of-attendance source

Cost and graduation facts

Federal reporting on who actually enrolls at Dartmouth, what they paid after aid, and what happened next — independent of anything the school markets.

Average annual net price by family income at Dartmouth, academic year 2021-22
Family income	Average net price paid
$0–$30,000	$41
$30,001–$48,000	$489
$48,001–$75,000	$2,695
$75,001–$110,000	$8,534
$110,001+	$52,036
All income levels (average)	$29,519

Sticker price vs. what students actually pay

Published tuition & fees, AY 2022-23: $68,268
Average net price paid (all Title-IV aid), AY 2021-22: $29,519

That works out to roughly a 66% discount below the federal AY 2021-22 average cost of attendance of $87,793 (College Scorecard — a separate, federally reported figure, not the published cost of attendance shown above).

Outcomes for students who enrolled here

Graduation rate (150% of normal time), 2016 cohort: 96%
First-year retention rate, 2021 cohort: 98%
Median debt at completion, 2020–2021 completers: $17,500 (~$186/mo on a 10-yr plan)
Median earnings, 10 years after entry (measured 2020-21): $97,434
Share of students receiving a Pell grant, AY 2021-22: 14%
Share of students receiving a federal loan, AY 2021-22: 13%

How to read these numbers

Net price reflects only first-time, full-time, degree-seeking students who received federal Title IV financial aid — not Dartmouth's full student body.
Published tuition is the catalog sticker price for all students, not a Title IV-only figure.
Graduation rate reflects the entire first-time, full-time, degree-seeking cohort — not only students who received Title IV aid.
Retention rate reflects all first-time, full-time, bachelor's-seeking students — not only Title IV aid recipients.
Median debt reflects only completers who took out federal student loans — not Dartmouth's full graduating class, and not limited to first-time, full-time students.
Median earnings reflect Title IV aid recipients who entered college and were working (not enrolled) roughly a decade later — not necessarily the graduating cohort, and not a recent graduate's paycheck.
Pell grant and federal loan participation covers first-time, full-time, degree-seeking students only.
Net price blends need-based aid and merit aid together — it is not a merit-specific estimate. It shows what similar-income families actually paid on average after every kind of aid, not what a strong-stats student could win in merit dollars alone. Treat it as cost context, not a merit forecast — a MeritPlaybook models merit aid specifically for your student’s own stats, which this net-price figure cannot do.

None of this is current-year data — the U.S. Department of Education reports it on a delay, and different figures below come from different reporting years. Net price is an academic year 2021-22 figure. Published tuition reflects the 2022-23 academic year. Graduation rate reflects the Fall 2016 entering, full-time, first-time, degree/certificate-seeking cohort; completion measured within 150% of normal time (~6 years for a bachelor's degree). IPEDS Graduation Rates component (C150_4). Retention reflects the Fall 2021 full-time, first-time, bachelor's-seeking cohort retained into the following fall. IPEDS Fall Enrollment component (RET_FT4). Median debt reflects the NSLDS FY2020 and FY2021 pooled completer cohorts (GRAD_DEBT_MDN, GRAD_DEBT_MDN10YR_SUPP). Median earnings reflect the Treasury-matched cohort entering college in AY2009-10 or AY2010-11, earnings measured 10 years later in calendar years 2020 and 2021, inflation-adjusted to 2022 dollars (MD_EARN_WNE_P10).

Source: U.S. Department of Education, College Scorecard.

See other scholarships and cost examples

If your student brings another scholarship

Outside scholarships first replace a student's leave-term earnings, employment expectation, and any optional loan. Only amounts that exceed those reduce the Dartmouth Scholarship dollar-for-dollar; they never reduce the calculated Parent Contribution.

Because Dartmouth packages need with student employment and grant (no required loan), outside awards first erase the self-help/employment expectation. A modest outside scholarship therefore tends to be additive to the student's pocket. Larger outside awards that exceed the replaceable self-help portion then reduce the Dartmouth Scholarship grant dollar-for-dollar.

Source

More school data

From the Dartmouth Common Data Set 2024-2025:

As filed in Dartmouth's CDS Section H2A: of 1,182 first-time, full-time degree-seeking freshmen, 0 had no financial need and received institutional merit (non-need) scholarship or grant aid. Across all full-time degree-seeking undergraduates: 0 of 4,474. Athletic awards are excluded per the CDS definition.

Receive institutional merit0%First-year students, Common Data Set 2024-2025

Source: Common Data Set 2024-2025 (verified 2026-07-23)

Dartmouth merit aid FAQ

Does Dartmouth give academic or merit scholarships?
No. Dartmouth states plainly that 'Dartmouth scholarship funds are all based on financial need' and that 'We do not offer any aid based on academic merit, artistic talent, athletic ability or other criteria.' Every dollar of Dartmouth institutional aid is awarded on demonstrated financial need.
How is financial aid determined at Dartmouth?
Aid is determined solely by need — income and asset information from the student and parents, without regard to academic merit, test scores, athletic ability, or other talents. Dartmouth's published commitment is that its financial aid 'covers 100% of the demonstrated need of all its students,' with no required student loans in the package.
Are there any non-need scholarships at all for undergraduates?
No undergraduate institutional merit, talent, or athletic scholarships exist at Dartmouth. (Some graduate and professional programs do offer merit aid, but that is separate from undergraduate admission.) Outside scholarships from third parties are allowed and encouraged, but Dartmouth itself awards only need-based aid.
Will winning an outside scholarship cost me my Dartmouth aid?
Outside scholarships first replace your leave-term earnings, employment expectation, and any optional loan — that part helps you. Only amounts that exceed what Dartmouth can replace 'will reduce Dartmouth Scholarship dollar-for-dollar,' and they can never reduce your calculated Parent Contribution.
Does Dartmouth meet full demonstrated need?
Yes. Dartmouth states its financial aid 'covers 100% of the demonstrated need of all its students,' and qualifying students receive a package that never includes a required student loan — need is met with student employment plus grant/scholarship funding.

See sources and other schools

How Dartmouth compares

145 of 749 verified schools in our dataset use loan-first displacement.
Dartmouth is in a recognizable cluster (145 schools share this category). That framing matters when comparing peer schools that may publish the policy differently or not at all.

Sources used on this page

Every claim is checked against Dartmouth’s own published materials. Below is the full reference set.

Policy pageDartmouth stacking policy
Cost of attendanceDartmouth cost-of-attendance worksheet

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Keep exploring Dartmouth merit aid

Dartmouth scholarship stacking. Whether outside awards land as upside or quietly displace institutional aid.
Does Dartmouth displace outside scholarships?. The dollar math on a $5,000 outside award, plus peer schools that handle it differently.