How do Georgetown and Brown compare on undergraduate need-based financial aid?

The biggest practical difference is that Brown’s need-based aid is designed to be loan-free, while Georgetown can meet demonstrated need with a package that may include student loans and work-study. Georgetown also states that it meets 100% of demonstrated financial need for eligible undergraduates, but its calculation and package structure can leave a larger student financing component.

Brown’s Brown Promise removes loans from need-based undergraduate aid awards, replacing them with scholarship funding. Brown is need-blind for domestic applicants, and its policy can make the four-year cost easier to predict for a family needing substantial assistance. Students may still have modest personal expenses or an expected summer contribution, depending on their circumstances, but Brown does not build institutional loans into need-based packages.

Georgetown is also need-blind for domestic applicants and uses institutional grant aid to meet eligible students’ demonstrated need. However, Georgetown aid packages can include federal direct loans and federal work-study alongside grants. A family’s calculated need may also differ from Brown’s because each school uses its own institutional methodology and considers income, assets, family size, home equity, business ownership, and siblings in college differently.

For a lower-income student whose family needs the lowest possible borrowing expectation, Brown is likely to offer the more favorable and transparent framework. Georgetown can still be affordable, especially if its calculation recognizes substantial need, but the actual comparison should turn on the two official aid offers and each school’s net price calculator result rather than the published policy alone.