When shopping for a car, most people know that the price stated on the vehicle's sticker is likely not what you will have to pay to purchase it. But when it comes to the cost of college, the government has determined that schools need to be more transparent regarding what it really will cost to attend there. The Higher Education Act of 2008 created a provision that effective October 29th of last year, colleges must have a Net Price Calculator (NPC) on their website that enables prospective students and their parents to estimate the net price of attendance based on their individual circumstances. Many schools implemented early so there's been sufficient time to review the experience to this point.
The results as with most changes of this nature have been clearly mixed. On the positive side, many students who in the past would not have even considered a higher priced private college are seeing through the NPC that given the likelihood of merit scholarships and/or need based financial aid, those schools are now within their reach. On the down side, some schools have not made it easy to find their NPC or the results are of poor quality. If you are on a school’s website and can not find the NPC, place “net price calculator” in the website’s search engine and it should take you to it. Unfortunately, some of the estimates provided are much too rough, not easy to understand, and in a few cases even misleading. Usually the more detailed the financial and academic information that is requested through a school’s NPC, the more accurate the estimate is likely to be.
Even with the start up issues mentioned, the NPC is definitely still a step in the right direction in providing a tool that more clearly projects the real cost of attendance early in the college admissions process. I'm sure as we go forward, the NPC will be refined to improve its effectiveness. So for now, consider the estimate you receive from it as just another piece of information to help make college application decisions. The more accurate financial numbers will still come within the actual financial aid package students receive from schools some time after they have been accepted for admission.