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.

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 1 Nov 2024

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

Does anyone know how Embry Riddle Aeronautical University is like today? I was there from 2005-2009 and at that time it seemed pretty decent. I guess due to its nature they concentrate on STEM and to my knowledge there are no philosophical or political classes. Hope they didn’t change but they do accept federal funds.

We need to constantly fight for liberty and freedom, I sure hope to see more schools on the list in the future. Thanks for your work and the information.

Ralston College is a brand new addition to this list. Just read an article on FEE about it and checked the website.

Dean Clancy says:

02 February 2021 at 1:41 pm

Thanks for the intel, Cindy! We’ll add Ralston College to the list when it gets off the ground, assuming it meets the criteria for the list. The school’s website says the school does not accept federal funds: https://www.ralston.ac/governing-principles. But it also says it is not yet accepting student applications: https://www.ralston.ac/ralstons-teaching

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