I sure hope this isn’t the case. Folks starting college in fall 2020 have applied for financial aid…and admission. I believe lots, if not most colleges updated their NPCs for the 2020-2021 academic year in fall 2019…for the upcoming entering class of 2020.
Regardless…this poster should be using 2019 data if their kid is,starting college fall 2021.
I did not find this to be the case when I was running them (although it was 2013 for 2014 grads). I found the NPCs to be quite out of date. DD#2’s school didn’t even set the tuition for September 2014 until June 2014 so there was no way they could have had an accurate NPC in the fall of 2013 when she was a hs senior. The tuition wasn’t updated, but neither was the merit grant so while the overall prices went up, so did the aid.
NPCs seem to be a little more accurate now, but a lot of schools don’t set their tuition for the following year until the budgets are set in the fall. Public schools often have to wait until the state budget is approved after the spring legislative session.
In recent years (remember, the NPCs aren’t THAT old), these NPCs are reset in the early fall for the following year.
But regardless…if this student is starting college in fall 2021, the 2019 tax year financials should be what the parent should enter the NPCs because 2019 data is what will eventually be used for computing need based financial aid.
Any NPC results info for 2021 start of college should be viewed as a VERY rough estimate. That’s well over a year away…financial aid policies can change, and yes, the cost of attendance most definitely will!
How do you know if the NPC is up to date? Allegheny I am going to assume is not up to date if they are asking for 2017 Tax info but when I print out my info it says “These results estimate the student’s award at Allegheny College if the student enrolled in Fall 2019, and may not accurately predict future costs and awards.” For UMD they didn’t have the Tuition set until we got to our new student Orientation in June and then we got billed in July : ).
Shame on Allegheny College for not updating their NPC to be useful for the current college application season. As noted in previous posts in this thread, their NPC is still asking for data from 2017 tax returns, which would have been used by applicants who were looking at Allegheny more than a year ago.
The only way to know if the NPC is updates is to look at the year the information is asked, and the tuition/fees/ other costs is a prior year’s tuition or the current tuition.
They did have NPCs in 2013/14 when I was using them. At that time, the FAFSA was filed in Jan and then updated once taxes were filed. However, the schools my kids picked, one private and one public, did not set the tuition for the next year until June. There is no way an NPC used in September (or even earlier than that by high school juniors) is correct for the next school year when the tuition isn’t even set until June. It’s close, but my daughter’s tuition went up about $2000 per year, so using an NPC that was out of date by 2 years was a $4000 swing.
There are very few regulations about the NPCs. They don’t have to be updated or include merit. They are not a promise of funding.
It should say on the top of the net price calculator somewhere what aid year it covers.
And you can tell from the question about income from a particular tax year.
I ran the NPC and then entered in the spreadsheet the most up to date tuition, fees, room and board estimates from the college website (COA).
Yes, NPCs can be quite outdated.
What I found helpful was seeing what kind of state grant, institutional grant and/or merit estimate we could receive.
For example Susquehanna’s NPC says it uses 2018 tax information. That is for the 2020/21 year.
COA estimate from the website is about $62,000 for 2019/20.
They also provide information for 2020/21 COA further down on that page. It is about $2,000 higher.
So you could assume that the COA would be another $2,000 or more higher for 2021/22.
The aid offered might increase or it might not.
You might want to run the NPC closer to application season, in the summer.
https://www.susqu.edu/admission-and-aid/tuition-and-financial-aid/tuition-and-fees
https://www.susqu.edu/admission-and-aid/tuition-and-financial-aid/net-price-calculator
Ok, I ran then NPC with 2019 tax return and her 3.4 UW GPA 3.98 W GPA and it showed 31K in grants/scholarships. This is another topic but her unweighted GPA’s have gone from 9th grade 3.2, 10th grade 3.2, 11th grade 3.8 after treatment for a mental heath and ADD disorder and she got distinquished honors. I am hoping that school like CTCL school will be able to recogonize this uptick if clearly shown in her transcript and should a GC make note of it?
A school could note the upward trend in grades and it may help with admissions, but if merit aid is granted based on stats, it will not change the amount awarded. Several schools made it clear that they don’t even round up, so a 3.2999 is not a 3.3. Whatever was on the transcript was the number used.
@twoinanddone noted. I am only running NPC with stats. I am thinking in terms of admission not merit. I should have specified.
Need based aid is usually not changed by the student’s stats. Some merit does include a need element, but most need is just based on the FAFSA or CSS. The upward trend can get the student a boost with admissions, but once admitted, it’s not going to change the aid.
Are you in or out-of-state for UMD?
OP hasn’t been on CC in a month and this thread is almost a year old so closing thread.