Dartmouth has followed the lead of other top schools like Harvard, Yale, and Duke, and done away with its student loan programs.

A number of top tier colleges and universities in the past few months have revamped their financial aid philosophies. The new Dartmouth policy means that loans at the school will be replaced with grant money students don't have to repay.

Dartmouth College is an Ivy League school in Hanover, New Hampshire. It was founded in 1769. Dartmouth has about six thousand students.

In addition to making changes to the policy on loans, Dartmouth has raised their income threshold for financial aid. Student's from households making less than $75,000 a year will soon be able to attend Dartmouth for free if they get accepted. And Dartmouth has an admissions procedure that is largely blind to student need, meaning that financial need is not a factor in admissions.

The new $75,000 income cap opens Dartmouth's doors to 70% of American home, according to Census Bureau data.
At the moment, 13 percent of Dartmouth students are the first in their families to attend college and 14 percent are recipients of Pell Grants (a federal grant for students who come from low-income families).

The new policy will start at the beginning of the 2008-09 academic year.