Admissions is need-blind for U.S. citizens, U.S. permanent residents, Canadian citizens and persons granted refugee visas by the United States. This means that applications are reviewed without regard to whether students are able to pay for the total cost of attending Columbia.
SEAS is committed to meeting the full need of all applicants admitted as first-year students. Certain limitations apply, however, in the case of transfer students. Although transfer admission is need-blind, financial aid resources for transfer students are limited. Therefore SEAS is unable to meet the full need of transfer applicants, with the exception of students who enter the Combined Plan Program and those who transfer from Columbia College.
The Combined Plan Program for undergraduates offers students from affiliated schools across the country the opportunity to earn both a B.A. in a liberal arts field from their home institutions and a B.S. in engineering from SEAS in five years.
SEAS assesses the information applicants provided to the Office of Financial Aid and Educational Financing to determine how much a family is expected to contribute to college costs. The resulting "family contribution" will include both a "parental contribution" and a "student contribution". If the calculated family contribution is less than the cost of attendance, aid is awarded to make up the difference.
Only students who demonstrate financial need are eligible for financial aid. Except for the unsubsidized Federal Stafford Loan, all institutional and federal aid is need-based. The financial aid package may contain a combination of Federal Stafford Loans, Federal Work-Study, and Federal Perkins Loans.
There are no academic, athletic, or talent-based institutional scholarships. While Columbia students are often the recipients of merit-based scholarships from outside organizations, nothing merit-based is offered directly from the school.
Foreign students should note that the admissions process is need-blind only for U.S. citizens, U.S. permanents resident, Canadian, and persons granted refugee visas by the United States. At this time, financial aid for foreign students who do not fall into one of these categories at SEAS is very limited. However, each year several foreign aid students are admitted to Columbia with a financial aid package that covers one-hundred percent of educational expenses. Because the SEAS community is so small, foreign applicants who need financial aid must be considered on a case-by-case basis; candidates should be aware that such awards may not be possible every year.