Accuracy of Net Price calculator

My DS is in the process of deciding whether to apply ED for Dartmouth. We ran the net price calculator and it seems really generous. Brown would require us to pay about $35K more a year (with the exact same figures) and even Harvard was estimating about 20K more a year. I’m a little nervous to rely on Dartmouth’s calculation on the College Board site. Anyone know if the calculator is accurate?

The information is only as good as the information that you put in. If your income is from straight income (you are not self employed, you do not own a business, you are an intact family- with no remarried/divorced spouses, you do not own any other property other than your residence) then it should be pretty accurate.

If your family income is over 200k, then you should use this one:

http://www.dartmouth.edu/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/~finaid/dfce.cgi

I think that if she has a a good chance of getting into an ivy, don’t worry about the price. If she gets into more than one ivy, her first choice will match the better price of another ivy. Dartmouth is very generous though.

I would check with Dartmouth directly if you are not sure about the accuracy of the NPC

The presence of trusts (parents or kids) can also throw off NPC results.

Baxter, one major difference between Brown and Dartmouth as far as financial aid is that Brown considers your home equity, while Dartmouth does not. I get a similar result between Brown and Dartmouth, and looked into this a bit. Brown expects you to use some of your home equity to pay the college bills, more than any other Ivy. If you have a lot of home equity, run the net price calculator again for Brown, and indicate that you don’t own a home, and see if the amount you have to contribute drops significantly.

@Outofthenest that really answers my question. We aren’t rich but do have substantial home equity that I expected to have to tap into for college. I feel a lot more comfortable letting my DS apply ED now and knowing that we can pay for it, especially since his sister will be applying to schools next year!