How accurate are the net price calculators?

All of ours are off to some degree. We are still married, don’t own additional property, don’t own a business, and are very boring financially. I think ours are out of whack because we don’t have a mortgage.

Mine is simple and off, so I would be afraid to trust it for anything complicated. Also, don’t forget to check the health insurance requirements. At one school we would not have been eligible for a waiver for our current coverage and the school insurance is $4,000. We would save nothing removing daughter from our employer purchased coverage. So we had to figure an extra $16,000 in cost for that school. It was a tipping point.

@itsanadventure

Do,your kids go to Profile schools? I’m only asking because if the net price calculators did NKT ask for primary home equity, and this is a Profile school…it is very possible that the home equity was not counted on the NPC but WAS in th financial aid calculations.

Everyone…the more questions on your NPC, the more likely it is to be accurate. Some only ask about salary and bank account balances…when in reality they are schools that use home equity, for example. Some don’t ask about marital status so they don’t know about divorced and remarried parents and New spouses incomes. Some don’t even ask how many kids are in college!

My son goes to a public school. Some of the calculators asked me lots of questions about taxes adjusted gross income losses etc. they also asked value and cost of home. Money owed on home business worth etc. would those be accurate for someone who is self employed and own a business?

@Skippy00

NO…for the umpteenth time. As you see, these calculators do NOT ask you for any information about your business or business deductions. So…how would they be accurate in your self employed/ business owner situation?

Wow. That was rude. You said in the post above mine the more questions they ask the more accurate they are. You should have said except if you own a business. However they did ask about business deductions (profit and loss).

@Skippy00

I wasn’t trying to be rude…but I am not the only poster here who has told you that business owners likely will NOT see accurate NPC results at many many colleges.

Sure. You found one that asks for profits and loss. But did it ask how much you deduct for business trips, meals, your cell phone, business car lease, or the like? These deductions will be on your business supplements for your taxes. They likely were not on that NPC.

Did it ask you how much you contributed to pretax retirement accounts for the year of the FAFSA and Profile you will be completing?

There are some colleges that really DO consider these deductions and add them back in as income…and it really surprises some parents.

Just use the NPC results…with caution…for a couple of reasons.

  1. You are self employed.
  2. You own real estate in addition to your primary residence.
  3. The net price calculators NOW are set up for students enrolling fall 2018. Your kiddo isn’t, right? And financial aid awarding formulas and policies DO change.

I know this puts you in a situation of uncertainty…perhaps look at merit awards that are NOT dependent on income or assets at all.

@thumper1 there are no deduction for meals, business trips, cell phones etc in my type of business. Also we do not have any retirement accounts. We are also incorporated which makes me and employee. Not sure if this is all different. I’m sorry if I am having a hard time grasping all his info. It is very conflicting because I am hearing different things on different posts as well as getting PM’s from people. I’m ready to surrender. I know everyone is trying to help but at the same time it’s stressing my son out because I told him not to get his heart set on living on campus. I need to just hang tight fill out the required info come applying time and hope for the best I guess Thanks for the advice.

Look at the merit scholarship options at University of Alabama Huntsville…I think he would get a very excellent merit award there.

University of Alabama main campus should be on your list too. I think merit aid there could be good.

At both schools…in addition to the merit aid, your son could take a $5500 Direct Loan to help with costs…and get a job to help with his discretionary spending money.

And very likely…living on campus would be affordable.

We will definitely check it out. He went to the Space Camp program next door. Loved it. He is very open to going away for a College.

@mom2collegekids will tell you…the Alabama schools have some excellent merit options…and strong STEM programs. There are lots of kids from outside of AL who take advantage of their generous merit awards.

I did the NPC for UAH and it had us at a net cost of $19k with the merit scholarship. Yikes. That is before the loans.

He missed the full ride because his unweighted gpa is a 3.95. Not sure what weighted would be or if they even go by weighted or unweighted? I know he is definitely over the 4.0 weighted.

^your son can take out $5500 loans each year. Is it not possible for you to handle parent loans of $15K/ year? If he gets a job in engineering he should be able to pay them all off quickly.
If he can add 50 pts to his SAT score that would make him eligible for the full ride at U of A Huntsville.

Does UAH super score?

Plug in an SAT score of 1520 and see what the #s are.

“University of Alabama-Huntsville
Application Deadline: June 1st
Award: Full Tuition + Housing
Requirements: 4.0 GPA, 34 ACT OR 1520 SAT”

I would also double check that application deadline date- JUNE 1 seems AWFULLY early to me!
But it MAY be accurate…

@menloparkmom he does not have a 4.0.

@Skippy00 I sent you a private message.

@skippy00,
To qualify he has to have a 4.0 , OR a 1520 SAT.
OR , not AND.

so lets assume that he can add 50 pts to his SAT score, which is NOT hard, and plug in a score of 1520 and see what the NPC shows.

@menloparkmom yes I see the “or” now. Yes something to strive for! Do you know if they super score? Thanks!

@thumper1 I believe that is exactly what happened. I didn’t realize that we would get “dinged” for not having a mortgage and the cost estimator did not show that. Because we were going off of the cost estimator we did not disclose some additional information on our CSS. We expected to be well within range of what we could afford. We now have a meeting scheduled with financial aid office and we are hoping that by disclosing additional info we can get closer to what we expected.

This whole experience has been such a learning process.