If you're applying from outside the US, the sticker price is the number that decides your list. And the standard advice — "apply for financial aid, most schools have it" — is written for domestic families. For you it's often wrong in both directions: some schools give amounts that would be unbelievable if they weren't filed publicly, and others give structurally zero and say so in writing.
Both facts live in the same document: section H6 of each school's Common Data Set, where a school reports how many international undergraduates received institutional aid and the average award.
The schools that fund the most
Ranked by total institutional aid awarded to international undergraduates — that is, recipients × average award, which captures both scale and generosity:
| School | Recipients | Average award | Cycle |
|---|---|---|---|
| Harvard | 805 | $83,013 | 2025–26 |
| Princeton | 551 | $71,003 | 2024–25 |
| Yale | 459 | $84,185 | 2025–26 |
| MIT | 411 | $81,991 | 2025–26 |
| Penn | 416 | $75,356 | 2024–25 |
Read the caveat before the numbers do their work on you: these are averages among students who received aid, not what a typical international admit gets. The denominator is recipients, not applicants and not admits. What the table supports is "this school moves real money to international students," not "you will get $83,000."
The schools that give you nothing — by policy
This is the half nobody publishes, and it's more decision-relevant than the first table.
Five schools in our data report institutional aid to international undergraduates as structurally zero — not "didn't report," but the filing states aid is not available: Carnegie Mellon, UNC–Chapel Hill, Georgia Tech, UVA, and USC (cycles 2024–25 and 2025–26).
For an international applicant, that means the published cost of attendance is the real number. There is no aid line to hope for. A $90,000 sticker is a $90,000 decision.
Note what these five have in common — four are public flagships, and public universities are funded to educate residents of their state. It isn't hostility; it's the mandate. But it does mean the usual heuristic ("publics are cheaper") inverts for you: for an international student, a wealthy private with a large endowment is often dramatically cheaper than a public flagship. That's counterintuitive enough that most lists are built the wrong way around.
Why this data is so hard to find
Because it's a per-school PDF, filed once a year, in a section most people never open. Aggregator sites report tuition and "average aid" that blends domestic and international students into one meaningless average. The school's own admissions page usually says something like "limited aid is available for international students," which is true whether the answer is $83,000 or $0.
We read H6 for every school we cover and render what's there — including "this school publishes nothing," because that's also information. Of the schools we've processed, 43 report usable figures and 5 report structural zero; the rest either don't publish the section or publish it in a form we won't guess at.
What to do with it
Build your list in two columns: schools where aid is possible, and schools where the sticker is the price. Then be honest about which column you can actually afford. A list of eight schools that all report zero is not a list — it's a very expensive lottery ticket. Every school page we publish shows its H6 line and links the original filing.
Figures from each school's published Common Data Set, section H6, cycle labeled inline. Results are data-based analysis and do not guarantee admission or aid.
See what your list actually costs — free.