Top 10 best value private colleges in America

#8 – Amherst College, Amherst, Mass.

Ann Hermes / The Christian Science Monitor / File
Students toss a football in this 2008 photo of Amherst College's freshman quad. In 2008, Amherst instituted a no-loan policy, supplying grants instead.

Amherst's average financial aid package is the largest of the Top 10 schools, reducing its $52,522 sticker price by 75 percent to the lowest net cost: just over $13,000. Amherst grads average $11,000 of debt. Why so little? Amherst gives all lower- and middle-income families grants, not loans.

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