I was texting with a friend whose 10th grade S will be her first to go to college and telling her about looking online for net price calculators. Both my friend and her H are self-employed as consultants - so would that fall under the general rule that “for people who own their own businesses, the NPCs are inaccurate”?
There is greater potential for inaccuracy in NPCs for self-employed people. Perhaps they can run the NPCs twice for each school – once using normal inputs, and another more pessimal run without deducting self-employment or business expenses from income – in order to get a range of potential results.
Even with the greater potential for inaccuracy, using the NPCs is better than applying blindly and hoping, since if a school’s NPC gives a clearly unaffordable net price even with normal inputs, they can know that it will not be affordable without merit scholarships.
If there is a place your child is particularly interested in, it is perfectly OK to ask the Fin Aid ofice about their specific formula. Just try to do that when it isn’t the middle of aid processing season so they have more time available for your questions.