Some posters have noted net price variations even among colleges that claim to meet 100% of demonstrated need. I do agree there is variation. However, I’ve found that for low to middle incomes, including incomes double to triple the median national family incomes, even the least generous of “full need” schools tend to be competitive in net cost with alternatives such as in-state public flagships.
Example (net costs for a family earning $150K with $150K in home equity, $75K in cash assets, and 1 child):
$28K College of the Holy Cross
$26K UMass-Amherst in-state
$25K Williams College
$24K Mt. Holyoke College
$23K Wellesley College
$21K Amherst College
$21K MIT
$21K Columbia University
Thanks for the responses! I appreciated the transparency of the Net Price Calculator and was running all the colleges on our list using real data, from our taxes. I know that the actual aid packages will differ from the results received online, but I am trying to determine which to pursue and which are simply too expensive to consider before we become attached! Even in the list DodgersMom was kind enough to link of colleges that meet full need, Mount Holyoke came out more than twice the cost of Smith. Our big public university, which doesn’t claim to meet full need - just interesting to note - would be more than most of the private colleges on our list.
Yes, I was wondering about the student contribution @ucbalumnus . I put in $0 for my dd savings but I would think a school would like to see the student have a bit of money saved up, even if it’s just a few hundred dollars. Anyone have experience or thoughts on this?
Student contribution that colleges expect is one or both of (a) federal direct loan (up to $5,500), and/or (b) some part time and/or summer work earnings (up to about $5,000).
Some colleges apply merit scholarships to replace these student contribution items before replacing financial aid grants.
most colleges expect students to take out the small, Federally financed loans [=approx $5000/yr] available to all college students, especially when most of the cost of tuition is absorbed by the college, which is not an unreasonable expectation,
A little “skin in the game”, should be relatively easy to pay off slowly after graduation and a job.
So in running NPC’s I would estimate that $5000/ year should be “expected” come from the student, either from federal loans or via work/study jobs at the college.
I do not pretend to be an expert, but if the school meets full need, but the student has no assets, then wouldn’t it just means that the need is greater, so the loan portion of the package would be slightly larger. They probably treat student-assets slightly different than parent assets in their calculations.
I don’t know if the college ‘likes to see’ that a student has savings.
The student savings amount is NOT used to calculate the student contribution. Schools set that amount and its up to the student and family to figure out how it will be paid.