Consider College Net Price When Looking at Affordability

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Robcse49 of NJ 8:59PM April 25, 2013

Done right, net price calculators can make it much easier for prospective students and their families to look past often scary “sticker prices” and start figuring out which colleges they might be able to afford – before they have to decide where to apply.
However, net price calculators should not sacrifice usability to replicate the college’s entire financial aid process. Net price calculators should not require students to pull out their tax returns, earnings statements, and other financial records. Students who lack easy access to those documents or feel overwhelmed by dozens of detailed questions may be deterred from completing the calculator at all.
To make their net price calculators accessible to everyone, colleges should limit the number of required questions. That way, students can easily get a ballpark estimate of college costs, or if they choose, provide more detailed information for a more refined estimate. And colleges should make it clear which questions are required and which are not.
We recently posted some tips for finding and using net price calculators: http://ticas.org/files/pub/Tips_for_using_NPCs.pdf. For more information about net price calculators and our recommendations for making them as useful as possible for students and their families, please view our report, “Adding It All Up: An Early Look at Net Price Calculators” (http://ticas.org/files/pub/adding_it_all_up.pdf).
--Diane Cheng
The Institute for College Access & Success
www.ticas.org

Diane Cheng (TICAS) of CA 8:26PM December 14, 2011

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