Flickr user Matt McGee
The third tab on a school page is chock-full of information breaking down the college costs of attending that particular college or university. The page starts off by showing you the sticker price of the school compared to your personalized net price estimate. The net price is the full cost of attendance, minus grants, scholarships, and merit aid. You can also see your estimated amount of debt at graduation, your level of debt burden, and your estimated monthly payment of loans after graduation. Consider this your bigger picture, better look at how college costs will affect not just during, but after college too.
The paying for college section breaks down what sort of aid you may receive from the institution and the government. It’s based on your unique academic and financial circumstances. The next section takes a look at the full cost of attendance. The full cost of attendance is the complete price of going to that school. It also shows how it is broken down into subcategories by cost.
Next we have information on scholarships, grants, and aid. This area shows the average dollar amount given to students, as well as the percent of the student body that receives each type of financial aid. Coming up after that are the middle-class affordability rankings. These show where the school ranks for a student in that state for a specific major. However, depending on the affordability of a college, this list may include schools from other states that rank well for the cost and that particular major. This section of the page also has a link to our “Shopping Sheet”. It is a more detailed breakdown of what your estimated costs would be.
The average net price by income – reported 2014-2015 graph details how income affects the net price of this particular institution, and this data comes directly from the government. In the graph below with green bars, we have our estimated net prices for a variety of income levels. We use our models and data to determine these numbers and cover a wide range of income levels. There is also a portion of this section on athletic scholarships and the total number of athletes at the school. Lastly, at the bottom of the page is a link to give us feedback. Should you find out that our estimates are significantly off, you can click this link to use the school’s official net price calculator and give us feedback about the differences you find.
Use our college match tool to get started. Doing this will allow us to estimate your personalized net prices for almost any college or university in the US. Then you can spend time investigating your options and deciding what is best for you.
