(MONEY Magazine) – With college aid increasingly coming in the form of loans, not grants, student debt levels are higher than ever. The Department of Education's most recent survey found that students at private schools borrow an average of $14,300 over four years. Now a handful of wealthy colleges are trying to lighten the loan burden. In February, Princeton announced that starting next fall all aid will be in the form of grants and work/study, not loans, a move the university estimates could save the average student from borrowing about $17,000 over four years. So far, no other school has matched Princeton--which enjoys the largest endowment per student in the Ivys--but a few others have vowed to cut loans. Harvard said that the school will increase aid by $2,000 per student starting next year. MIT said it will increase annual need-based grants by $3,100. Williams College pledged to cut loans by an average of $1,000 a year and give out larger cash scholarships.

Will students at other colleges get a break? Few schools can afford to replace loans with grants, notes Jon Fuller, a senior fellow at the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. However, college aid experts predict that private schools that vie for many of the same top students--Cornell, Duke, Northwestern and U. of Pennsylvania, for instance--will feel pressure to offer more generous aid packages, particularly more merit-based scholarships, to stay competitive. That should give parents who are weighing competing aid offers more power to negotiate.

--STEPHANIE D. SMITH