NotesFAQContact Us
Collection
Advanced
Search Tips
Back to results
ERIC Number: ED611240
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 2020-Sep
Pages: 32
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Giving Students the Upper Hand: Improving Net Price Calculators to Aid Michigan's Students in College Decision Making
Brown, Catherine; Wong, Nancy
Institute for College Access & Success
High tuition makes headlines and may dissuade students from pursuing college or excluding what appear to be high-cost colleges. However, a college's "sticker price" can be misleading because it does not reflect any grant or scholarship aid that reduces the price students actually pay. As the costs of attending college have risen, the role of financial aid in making college affordable for low- and moderate-income students has become increasingly important. A decade ago, the federal government attempted to address confusion around sticker and net prices by requiring all colleges to maintain on their websites a net price calculator (NPC) that displays a personalized estimate of net cost based on the family resources input by a prospective student. At their best, net price calculators can be helpful marketing tools for colleges looking to expand access for students with financial need, showing how much grant aid students are likely to receive and how much the price comes down once those awards are applied. In this way, they are also powerful tools for students who may uncover the reality that their dream college is in closer financial reach than they may have assumed. While Net Price Calculators are a critical resource, national research has shown that they can be hard to find, hard to use, and hard to compare across colleges. In this paper, the authors explore the accessibility, ease of use, and comparability of NPCs in Michigan, and find that trends in the state mirror the national story: these tools are not consistently easy to find, use, or compare. The authors provide recommendations for the federal government, states, and colleges to improve NPCs. [This report was researched and written with support from Lindsay Ahlman, Oliver Schack, and Jessica Thompson.]
Institute for College Access & Success. 405 14th Street 11th Floor, Oakland, CA 94612. Tel: 5110-559-9509; Fax: 510-845-4112; e-mail: admin@ticas.org; Web site: http://www.ticas.org
Publication Type: Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education; Two Year Colleges
Audience: Policymakers
Language: English
Sponsor: Joyce Foundation; Kresge Foundation
Authoring Institution: Institute for College Access & Success
Identifiers - Location: Michigan
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A