Posted on by Dean Clancy

A list of colleges that don’t take federal money

In order to preserve their freedom and independence.

The following colleges in the United States, in order to preserve their liberty and independence, do not accept grants from the federal government or participate in any federal financial-aid or student-loan program.

  1. Aletheia Christian College (Idaho)
  2. Bethlehem College & Seminary (Minnesota)
  3. Boyce College (Kentucky)
  4. Christendom College (Virginia)
  5. Crown College (Tennessee)
  6. Faith Bible College (Maine)
  7. Grove City College (Pennsylvania)
  8. Gutenberg College (Oregon)
  9. Hildegard College (California)
  10. Highlands College (Alabama)
  11. Hillsdale College (Michigan)
  12. Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary (Tennessee)
  13. Mount Liberty College (Utah)
  14. New College Franklin (Tennessee)
  15. New Saint Andrews College (Idaho)
  16. Patrick Henry College (Virginia)
  17. Pensacola Christian College (Florida)
  18. Principia College (Illinois)
  19. Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (Kentucky)
  20. Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (Texas)
  21. Weimar University (California)
  22. Wyoming Catholic College (Wyoming)

Government aid comes with government strings, whether it goes directly to a school or directly to its students. To avoid these strings, a school must decline aid, both to itself and to its students, meaning it must decline to participate, or facilitate its students’ participation, in government funded or sponsored loan and grant programs.

Most of the schools on the list refuse state and local aid as well as federal.

The list only includes traditional bricks-and-mortar institutions (no online or purely digital entities).

To submit updates or corrections to this list, please contact us.

Updated 3 June 2025

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86 Replies to “A list of colleges that don’t take federal money”

  1. An additional comment I’m familiar with is that the Federal Reserve funds University economic departments. A professor I took Econ from refused to criticize fiat money when I brought this to his attention. About 3 students in this engineering class groaned at the professors fiat support, which is a promising sign. While many remain silent out of fear, I suspect others agreed.

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  2. While, for example, Hillsdale College may refuse government money, they also refuse to criticize the fiat monetary system of the USA. That’s the only one I’m familiar with, and suspect that applies to all on the above list. That has the appearance of not having the courage to do so due to possible repercussions.

    Further, Edmund Randolph, Washington’s AJ, warned against having a central bank, since the US Constitution had no provision for it, or for corporations (i. e., Federal Reserve) in general, as being included in the Federal Government.

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  3. Colleges are required to be accredited by particular agencies to be *allowed* to offer Federal Student Aid. Some colleges who say they “don’t accept federal dollars or offer federal student aid” are NOT offering a quality education and simply do not qualify for accreditation from standard agencies. Also worth noting, the state research universities that “receive federal funding,” most of the dollars are not handouts- they are instead the government paying them for often important research that they trust the college’s scholars to conduct.

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