FAFSA & Net Price Calculators

Seniors, are you making progress on completing and submitting your FAFSA?  Don't forget, the FAFSA application is now open and available for you to submit and the deadlines are rapidly approaching!  Each college sets their own deadlines and you need to make sure you have submitted your FAFSA prior to the 1st deadline of all of your colleges.

For those of you who are younger students and trying to get an idea of the financial aid offers you might receive from particular schools, you can use the Net Price Calculator.  Every college is required to feature a net price calculator on their website. This is in an effort to help provide students and parents with the information needed to make more educated decisions and choices about what they can expect to pay for a college education at each school. Now, I will forewarn you that not every net price calculator is the same and some are more detailed than others. Why does this matter? Well, if it is very specific and takes all of the different factors into consideration that the financial aid office will be looking at when creating your financial aid package, then you are likely to get a better picture of what your estimated aid might be, but if it is a more simplistic calculator then there could be more variance when compared to your actual aid package.  Plus, of course, the accuracy of the information that you submit will determine the accuracy of the information that you receive back.

Without a doubt, college is very expensive and so trying to figure out the best ways to be able to finance your education is an important factor to consider in your college search and selection process. I hope that this tool will be useful to you as you investigate schools.