Net Price Calculators

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How Much Is That College In The Window?

The other day I was working with a student who ended up learning a lot about the difference between sticker price and net price. The student in question was interested in architecture but assumed that schools who offer the program would cost him too much.  In fact, he was prepared to give up on the idea of architecture and pick a different major altogether so that he could attend a local state school here in Connecticut just to save money.

While this is not meant to be a knock on our state schools (I’m a product of two of them), this is a knock on a system that had so far prevented this young man from truly understanding his options.

I proceeded to pull up the College Board website so that I could show him the difference between sticker price and net price. Since he wanted to stay in the Northeast, we narrowed his search down to several schools in the New England and Mid-Atlantic region. For the purpose of this blog, I randomly selected three schools from the list we generated: Lehigh University, Temple University, and Philadelphia University.

Going by the assumptions the student was making about sticker price, one year of college would cost him $55,515 at Lehigh, $38,935 at Temple and $46,282 at Philadelphia. Each one of them a prohibitive cost. But then I showed him the Paying tab on the College Board website and how he needed to look beyond the sticker price of each institution. Upon doing so, I was able to show him that Lehigh’s average first year financial aid package is $34,773 making their net price $20,742. Temple’s average package was $15,373 bringing the net price in at $23,562. Philadelphia University gives freshmen $28,220 to bring the true price down to $18,062.

All of a sudden, not so prohibitive.

Seeing as how this student’s grades and SAT scores fell within the top 25% of admitted students for each school, it’s a safe bet to say he’s probably going to receive the average package from each school. In fact, he may receive financial aid packages that are better than the average.

Another way to figure out what a school is going to cost you is to use a net price calculator. Colleges are now required to include one on their website, though some are easier to find than others. These calculators will ask you to enter some personal information and will then compute an estimated net price. Not all calculators are created equal so be sure to pay close attention to the breakdown of loans, grants and merit money when you get your net price results.

At the end of the day, as this student learned, it pays to do your homework.

If you have questions about net price or would like some help figuring out how to reduce the cost of college, use the comment box below or email me directly at eric@doblercollegeconsulting.com. I would love to hear from you!

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Eric Nov 11, 2012 , , , , , , , No Comments
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Must Have Items On Your College List – Part II

Two weeks ago, I talked about how to build a great college list and then last week I introduced the first four of eight “must-haves” you should consider when creating a college list. Today, in Part II, I’m going to cover types of admission, chance of admission, graduation rates and cost.

Types of admission
There are several types of admission and how much you love a school will often dictate how you end up applying. Here’s a rundown of the major types of admission to consider:

1. Regular decision is the process by which you apply by each college’s published deadlines. By doing so, you will receive an admissions decision by April 1st though there is no obligation to commit until the May 1st response deadline.

2. Early decision, also known as ED is where you can apply early and receive your decision early – typically by mid-December. The price for this early decision is that you commit to attending the college and agree to withdraw all other applications. You can only apply ED to one school and, since this is a binding acceptance, you better know that this school is the right one for you on all fronts.

3. Early action, or EA, also allows you to apply early though, unlike with ED, you are under no obligation to accept the offer of admission. You can submit other applications, wait for their responses and then make a decision by May 1st. Essentially, you can play the field. There are variations of EA policies, so be sure to check with each school individually on their restrictions.

4. Rolling admissions is where students are admitted on a regular, or rolling, basis. The schools will make decisions until they have met their requirements for the new freshman class.

We’ll talk more about these different types of admission in a week or two.

Chance of admission

It’s important to get a feel for your chance of admission so that you have appropriate expectations about each school before you add it to you list.

That’s right. BEFORE.

Do your research by using websites like the College Board’s Big Future to understand whether or not you are a competitive applicant when compared to students who have previously been admitted. You know Harvard and Yale are a reach for just about everyone, but do you know if Quinnipiac is a reach? By selecting the SAT & ACT Scores tab on the Applying section, you would see that the middle 50% of admitted and enrolled students score within 520-590 on the Critical Reading, 540-610 on the MATH and 540-610 on the Writing. Under the Academics tab, you can compare your high school courses against the courses Quinnipiac expects to see from its applicants. Now, where do you stack up and what do you think of your chances?

Graduation rates

College is supposed to be the best four years of your life, right? Well, for the most part, graduation rates are actually quoted for six years instead of four. So, if you’re planning a budget based on four years’ worth of tuition and fees, you want to know that the schools you are adding to your college list can actually help you accomplish this. Want to know the four, five or six-year graduation rates for Boston College? You can find them at College Results Online. Want to know how Boston College’s peer institutions fare in the graduation rate category? You can find that information by simply clicking on the Similar Colleges tab.

Cost

There’s a lot to say about cost and the factors that go into it, but for today I want to talk about understanding that the price in the window, is not necessarily the price you end up paying.

Tuition and fees have risen over 400% since the early 80’s. But like everything in your college search, doing some homework ahead of time can really help.

What’s important to understand is that a lot of schools discount their tuition– especially private schools. This adjusted cost is called net price and it can, and will, be different for families based on the qualifications of each applicant, how much money a school typically throws at its new students and your EFC. EFC stands for “Expected Family Contribution” and it is the amount a college will expect you to contribute towards your cost. The higher your EFC, the more you will be expected to contribute and the less aid you can expect to receive. Since last fall, colleges have been required to host net price calculators somewhere on their website. You can use the calculators to enter your personal information and get an idea of what the net price might be for you.

The calculators are far from perfect, but if a school’s cost is going to be too much for you, it’s always better to be disappointed before you apply rather than after you have been accepted.

If you have any questions about building a great college list, please use the comment box below – I would love to hear from you!

You can also email me directly at eric@doblercollegeconsulting.com.

 

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Eric Jul 30, 2012 , , , , , , , , , No Comments
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A Conversation About College Part II

Last week, I wrote Part I of a series called, “A Conversation About College” which covered some of the more pressing questions that were asked at a workshop I recently conducted at Sacred Heart Church in Southbury, Connecticut. Today, I am sharing Part II with you:Q: We’re not sure what the best type of school is for our son. He might want to be a history teacher, but he’s not sure.As far as figuring out what type of school is the best one, that’s something that comes with time, conversation and research. There are many factors that go into defining what type of school your son will do well at. For example, he should be thinking about attributes such as location, size of the student body, cost, private or public and reputation. Once these bigger ticket items have been identified, he can start doing some visits and online research to see what appeals to him and what doesn’t.  When I work with clients individually, I walk them through developing a college list and this exploration I just mentioned is the first step.

Q: What type of extra-curricular activities are admissions counselors looking for?We talked about this at length the other night, so this may sound repetitive, but the best activities for your son to be involved in are activities that mean something to him and which help complement his brand – here’s a blog I wrote about branding back in the fall that may help shed some light on the concept. Ultimately, you want to encourage him to think about quality over quantity.Q: How important is the essay and the essay topic?

This is a great question because while the essay can be very important, the topic isn’t necessarily what makes it important. What matters in an essay is how you tell your story. An essay really can be about any topic, big or small, but it’s how the student connects to the essay and what they are able to reveal about themselves that matters. A student who can show some depth, who can demonstrate a level of reflection and who can get me to see that what he is writing about truly matters to him is a student who has done a great job with their essay. The best way for a student to accomplish this is to really invest some time in their essay and make peace with the fact that they will write and rewrite several times before their essay is done. In fact, what their final essay looks like may not look anything like the original concept when they started.

Q: We are just starting the college search and our son is a sophomore – where do we start?

For freshmen and sophomores, the focus should be on helping them figure out what is important to them, what their strengths, skills and abilities are and introducing the idea of what college is about. If you go to my website, you will see that I offer a package called the “Early Exploration Package for Freshmen and Sophomores.” Basically, I help students at this stage work through a self-assessment while exploring some long range goals that tie into the college process.

Q: How do we go about figuring out our financial aid & scholarship options?

Again, this is time sensitive for the most part since you cannot apply for financial aid using the FAFSA until January 1st of the student’s senior year in high school. If he or she decides they are applying to any private schools, they may be required to also fill out the CSS Profile. The Profile, however, can be filed prior to January 1st.  While you can’t do anything about filing just yet, what you can do is spend some time figuring out how much all of this is going to cost. There is some detail to this, but essentially you want to know what you will be expected to pay for school so that you have some time to plan. If you go on the College Board website, you can use their EFC Calculator to do just this. EFC stands for “Expected Family Contribution” and is a term you will get to know quite well as senior year approaches. Your EFC is what a college will expect you to pay and it is how they calculate what they will offer you in the form of aid, grants and loans. The higher your EFC, the more you will be expected to contribute and the less aid you will expect to receive. As of this past October, each college and university has been mandated to publish a net price calculator on their website. So, as your student identifies schools where he or she would like to apply, you can use their net price calculator to get a feel for how things might look financially. Here is a blog that I wrote about the EFC calculators.

Q: How to choose a career/major?

This is a great question and one that troubles many students as they work through this process. To be honest, I do some assessments with students to help flesh out their values, interests, personality style and skills – or what I like to call their VIPS. Once you have a good idea of what is important to a student, what they are interested in and what they are likely to do well at, it is a lot easier to present options for majors and to point them in the direction of some useful career exploration. If it turns out that their interests are all over the place, then you want to be looking at schools that offer a wide variety of majors and where a student can start off as an undeclared major and then take some time in first semester to continue their career exploration.

I wouldn’t worry about this issue too much as of right now, especially if your son or daughter is only a sophomore or junior. Over 50% of students end up changing their majors during their freshman year anyway.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the awesome moms out there! I hope you’re having a great day!

If you have any thoughts you would like to share on “A Conversation About College,” please use the comment box below – I would love to hear from you! You can also email me directly at eric@doblercollegeconsulting.com.

Eric Dobler is the president and founder of Dobler College Consulting. Follow him on Twitter.

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Eric May 13, 2012 , , , , , , , , , No Comments