NYU’s NPC is among the worst, and I don’t think you should treat it as accurate at all. Compare it to others that ask much more detailed info about parent/student finances. This is the bare minimum NPC required by the govt, and schools that use it are simply giving you averages for all the students with those numbers in that given year (2013-14). Don’t think in terms of tuition being separate from room and board. Lump them together and refer to it as ‘cost of attendance’ or COA.