Wonder if any of the experienced folks can speak to accuracy of the college cost calculators and net price calculators that schools have on their website.
We’re trying to pare down D’s list to make it more manageable over the next few months, and I’m thinking maybe we just knock out the schools where the difference between cost and possible aid available exceeds any resources we could hope to muster!
Thoughts, o wise ones?
Most of the ones we used were pretty accurate with the glaring exception of one (Roosevelt) which has since been fixed. (There’s need-based aid for the non-CCPA part of Roosevelt but not for CCPA, and they had the same calculator for both three years ago.) But I’d say in general, the offer was within range of the calculator, with an adjustment for talent-based money, which is hard to predict.
The calculators are in general accurate with two major caveats–
I’ve been through this six (!) times. Each time my kids did get outliers, either much poorer or much better financial aid offers than expected. Remember also, that financial aid can include loans as opposed to grants.
Here is a quote from research done just on this issue, from Journal of Student Financial Aid:
“We find actual levels of grant aid awarded can differ from the NPC estimate by several thousand dollars. We find that the greatest share of this difference is in the form of institution-specific grant aid, while federal and state grant aid is more predictable. In short, NPCs may help families with a ballpark estimate of their likely postsecondary expenses, but for many low-income families, the ballpark remains large, owing primarily to variation in grant aid provided by institutions themselves.”
So a difference of a few thousand could be expected, but probably not $20,000 or up. Is that accurate?
Also, connections, I take my hat off to six kids through the college process! I’m such a piker…
@KarenK99, hahah thanks. (I actually have five kids, but went through it twice for one of them!).
I think what you’re saying - a difference of a few thousand might be expected but not significantly more - is usually true. But I still think there are occasionally nice surprises, particularly if a) you have need combined with b) they really want you. This is a need-merit grant, or in other words, a merit grant that is given to those in need.
You can’t predict if they’ll really want you, though, until they really want you. So I always advise folks to apply for a few financial reaches. Be sure you are clear to your kid that they have two hurdles–getting in and affording it.
I’ve said this before, but a while back my older D got into her dream school, RISD, and though we had an EFC then of literally 0, she got only a Pell Grant (which is a very small amount), and nothing else, only an offer to borrow money. You might say, "Oh well RISD probably didn’t give money to anyone, " but that’s not true; I happened to know another girl who got very significant need/merit grant that same year. They just wanted that girl more than my D. You can’t predict this beforehand. And I don’t mean anything against RISD by the way. Any school is entitled to want who they want. Some schools just don’t have the wherewithal to give a lot of grant money.
Also, remember that you can also use one offer to negotiate with another school. I know several people who’ve done this successfully. For instance, School B gives you $25K grant. School A is your kid’s dream school; but it is giving no money. You can use School B’s offer to negotiate with School A. They will sometimes match. Again I’ve seen this happen. It depends again on how much they want you. And some schools will also give you more if you appeal the decision on its own merit, not by comparing. This happened to my D, who got a generous offer from a top school, but not quite generous enough. She appealed - we actually didn’t submit any additional financial pieces, just appealed - and they met as a board, and granted additional money. They were very kind about it too.
Finally you can also appeal on a financial basis if you have a special case, e.g. high medical bills, and of course any financial change of circumstance.
So after this long rambling answer, bottom line is: Usually it’s generally correct,but sometimes there are outliers. Because of this, I’d recommend applying to 2 schools or so as financial reaches.
Thank you - very helpful @connections.