WE'RE PAST "DECISION DAY" FOR THE SENIORS, AND IT'S TIME FOR YOU PARENTS OF HIGH SCHOOL JUNIORS - AND ALSO THE PARENTS OF YOUNGER STUDENTS - TO LEARN A NEW SKILL. BECAUSE, ALTHOUGH ALMOST ALL COLLEGES SAY THEY HAVE GENEROUS FINANCIAL AID PROGRAMS, ONLY ABOUT A THIRD OF THEM REALLY DO. THE REST WOULD GLADLY HUSTLE YOU AND YOUR KIDS INTO HIGH-LOAN FINANCIAL AID PROGRAMS THAT WILL BE A LONG-TERM DISASTER FOR ALL OF YOU.
BUT YOU JUST GOT LUCKY. SOMEHOW YOU FOUND THE WEBSITE THAT WILL HELP YOU RELIABLY FIND THE SCHOOLS THAT WILL BE THE MOST AFFORDABLE FOR YOU AND YOUR KIDS BEFORE THEY EVEN APPLY. THE SKILLS YOU WILL LEARN HERE AREN'T TAUGHT BY YOUR HIGH SCHOOL, AND THEY CAN EASILY SAVE YOUR FAMILY $100,000 PER CHILD ON THEIR DEGREES. MORE IMPORTANTLY, YOU WILL LEARN THAT THE BEST EDUCATIONS AT THE BEST COLLEGES IN AMERICA ARE WITHIN THE REACH OF KIDS LIKE YOURS.
SO, RELAX AND GET READY TO LEARN ALL ABOUT AMERICAN COLLEGE GENEROSITY!
BUT YOU JUST GOT LUCKY. SOMEHOW YOU FOUND THE WEBSITE THAT WILL HELP YOU RELIABLY FIND THE SCHOOLS THAT WILL BE THE MOST AFFORDABLE FOR YOU AND YOUR KIDS BEFORE THEY EVEN APPLY. THE SKILLS YOU WILL LEARN HERE AREN'T TAUGHT BY YOUR HIGH SCHOOL, AND THEY CAN EASILY SAVE YOUR FAMILY $100,000 PER CHILD ON THEIR DEGREES. MORE IMPORTANTLY, YOU WILL LEARN THAT THE BEST EDUCATIONS AT THE BEST COLLEGES IN AMERICA ARE WITHIN THE REACH OF KIDS LIKE YOURS.
SO, RELAX AND GET READY TO LEARN ALL ABOUT AMERICAN COLLEGE GENEROSITY!
The purpose of this website is to help middle and lower income American parents find truly affordable colleges for their children while minimizing their college debt. Although the techniques I developed for this site are equally effective for upper income families, my focus is on helping students who are eligible for Pell Grants - students from American families with household incomes less than about $70,000 per year - to find affordable colleges.
So, this site is about saving ON college, not saving FOR college. My goal is to help the dreams that middle and lower income American parents have for the educations of their children come true, within their realities as they exist today, using assets they already have, by making the best use of freely available online resources.
As we begin, you need to hear and believe something you've never heard before. Finding colleges that will be truly affordable for your family is the easiest and most reliable aspect of an effective college search. The other aspects of an effective college search aren't that hard either, and they all need to be done, but the U.S. Congress passed a law in 2008 that made finding affordable colleges a piece of cake, and it's continued to be a piece of cake since that law became fully effective in 2011.
That law required all colleges to include "Net Price Calculator" programs - we'll call them "NPCs" - in their websites. NPCs allow parents to answer a few questions about their family's finances and get a 97% accurate estimate of their costs and financial aid at that school right then, before their students even apply. NPCs are free, accurate, reliable, immediate, and secure. And by using NPC's in your college search, your risk of excessive college costs and loans will be reduced to zero. No joke, you will have no risk of excessive costs and loans.
The only problem with NPCs is that your high school almost certainly hasn't told you about them. High schools nationwide have been asleep on this for the ten years since this law was passed, and they still are. But, at least for you, that's about to change. You're here, and you're about to learn skills that will change your lives and the lives of your kids. And you'll be astonished by some of the affordable college opportunities available to your kids next year.
Congratulations on finding this website, and welcome aboard!
Three Notes:
1. This site is now at the start of its sixth year, and it's also in the middle of a thorough rewrite. Surplusage is being eliminated, and things are being moved around, but the main changes will be in the first three pages. The Homepage will soon include an overview of the topic and a recap of the last five years. The next page, a new one entitled "Four Presidents", will analyze the educations - and especially the cost of the educations - of the last four Presidents of the United States. The next page, another new one entitled "Bookends", will guide students and parents through actual Net Price Calculator programs for two of the most and least generous colleges I analyze. First, I will use data for my sample families, and then I will encourage students and parents to complete the same simple NPC's using their own family's financial data. At the end of that process, they will know their family's college cost and financial aid range - the best and worst it can be - and they will also receive an accurate estimate of their Expected Family Contribution right then, before they complete the FAFSA. That's been a bigger job than I thought, but please understand that this is a one-man shop, and I'm doing my best. So stay tuned, and remember that - as always - the two key documents you will use in finding your most affordable colleges are unchanged. They are at the bottom of every page in this site, and all you have to do to find your own affordable colleges is to download them, follow the instructions, and get to work.
2. The "American College Generosity" website is intended for parents, counselors, and teachers whose students are already convinced of the value of a college education, meaning students who are already "sold on the college concept." If your kids or students aren't at that stage yet, I have another site that can help you nudge them in that direction. The name of that site is "See Your Kids in College;" and it's light, easy, and effective. It's methods are intended for students who are about to enter middle school - right when student effectiveness usually tanks - but its methods work for all students. It starts from the fact that college sounds like work, but looks like fun.
Here's its URL:
http://seeyourkidsincollege.weebly.com/
And, last but not least...
3. I learned the skills I teach in this site by helping our son Gregory find effective colleges that we could all really afford. We're a middle income family from Poulsbo, Washington; Greg was interested in electrical engineering and music; and my goal was to find a list of colleges that really fit his needs and that required minimal student and parent debt. I had discovered Net Price Calculator programs in 2009, and they were central to our college search.
Greg ultimately matriculated as an electrical engineering major in the Tufts University School of Engineering in the fall of 2013. He graduated in May of '17 with a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering along with a minor in Music Engineering with a concentration in Electronic Musical Instrument Design. While at Tufts, Greg stayed active in music, recording three EP's with his band "Shark Saddle" and also recording four solo EP's and one LP. Here's the link to Greg's LP, https://unclesugar.bandcamp.com/. Greg is now employed as a software engineer at a sound-oriented start-up in Los Angeles. His career is in gear, he's working hard, and he's still very active in music.
Tufts is a highly generous school, and its NPC results indicated that we should expect Greg to accumulate about $16,000 in total student loans during his four years there, with no parent loans required. The final results were a little better than that. No parent loans were required, but Greg's student loans were less, a total of $11,000 over his four years at Tufts, which has resulted in total student loan payments of about $100 per month.
Words, as you might expect, cannot describe how pleased Katia and I are with Greg's experience on "The Hill."
Thank you, Tufts, and go Jumbos!
While I'm at it, I ought to mention our daughter Maria, the lovely young lady standing next to the old guy in the picture below, who will graduate from Trinity College in Hartford, CT in May of 2019. At Trinity, Maria is carrying two majors - Math and Urban Studies, as well as two minors - Russian and Models & Data. She also tutors other students, she worked two years with disadvantaged youth at the YMCA downtown, she's doing rocket science in Los Angeles during her last two college summers, and she's an active a cappella singer. Trinity, once again, has honestly generous financial aid, and Maria's numbers should be roughly equal to Greg's. Maybe a little better.
So, Katia and I can only say "Thank you, Trinity College!" and "Go Bantams!"
So, this site is about saving ON college, not saving FOR college. My goal is to help the dreams that middle and lower income American parents have for the educations of their children come true, within their realities as they exist today, using assets they already have, by making the best use of freely available online resources.
As we begin, you need to hear and believe something you've never heard before. Finding colleges that will be truly affordable for your family is the easiest and most reliable aspect of an effective college search. The other aspects of an effective college search aren't that hard either, and they all need to be done, but the U.S. Congress passed a law in 2008 that made finding affordable colleges a piece of cake, and it's continued to be a piece of cake since that law became fully effective in 2011.
That law required all colleges to include "Net Price Calculator" programs - we'll call them "NPCs" - in their websites. NPCs allow parents to answer a few questions about their family's finances and get a 97% accurate estimate of their costs and financial aid at that school right then, before their students even apply. NPCs are free, accurate, reliable, immediate, and secure. And by using NPC's in your college search, your risk of excessive college costs and loans will be reduced to zero. No joke, you will have no risk of excessive costs and loans.
The only problem with NPCs is that your high school almost certainly hasn't told you about them. High schools nationwide have been asleep on this for the ten years since this law was passed, and they still are. But, at least for you, that's about to change. You're here, and you're about to learn skills that will change your lives and the lives of your kids. And you'll be astonished by some of the affordable college opportunities available to your kids next year.
Congratulations on finding this website, and welcome aboard!
Three Notes:
1. This site is now at the start of its sixth year, and it's also in the middle of a thorough rewrite. Surplusage is being eliminated, and things are being moved around, but the main changes will be in the first three pages. The Homepage will soon include an overview of the topic and a recap of the last five years. The next page, a new one entitled "Four Presidents", will analyze the educations - and especially the cost of the educations - of the last four Presidents of the United States. The next page, another new one entitled "Bookends", will guide students and parents through actual Net Price Calculator programs for two of the most and least generous colleges I analyze. First, I will use data for my sample families, and then I will encourage students and parents to complete the same simple NPC's using their own family's financial data. At the end of that process, they will know their family's college cost and financial aid range - the best and worst it can be - and they will also receive an accurate estimate of their Expected Family Contribution right then, before they complete the FAFSA. That's been a bigger job than I thought, but please understand that this is a one-man shop, and I'm doing my best. So stay tuned, and remember that - as always - the two key documents you will use in finding your most affordable colleges are unchanged. They are at the bottom of every page in this site, and all you have to do to find your own affordable colleges is to download them, follow the instructions, and get to work.
2. The "American College Generosity" website is intended for parents, counselors, and teachers whose students are already convinced of the value of a college education, meaning students who are already "sold on the college concept." If your kids or students aren't at that stage yet, I have another site that can help you nudge them in that direction. The name of that site is "See Your Kids in College;" and it's light, easy, and effective. It's methods are intended for students who are about to enter middle school - right when student effectiveness usually tanks - but its methods work for all students. It starts from the fact that college sounds like work, but looks like fun.
Here's its URL:
http://seeyourkidsincollege.weebly.com/
And, last but not least...
3. I learned the skills I teach in this site by helping our son Gregory find effective colleges that we could all really afford. We're a middle income family from Poulsbo, Washington; Greg was interested in electrical engineering and music; and my goal was to find a list of colleges that really fit his needs and that required minimal student and parent debt. I had discovered Net Price Calculator programs in 2009, and they were central to our college search.
Greg ultimately matriculated as an electrical engineering major in the Tufts University School of Engineering in the fall of 2013. He graduated in May of '17 with a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering along with a minor in Music Engineering with a concentration in Electronic Musical Instrument Design. While at Tufts, Greg stayed active in music, recording three EP's with his band "Shark Saddle" and also recording four solo EP's and one LP. Here's the link to Greg's LP, https://unclesugar.bandcamp.com/. Greg is now employed as a software engineer at a sound-oriented start-up in Los Angeles. His career is in gear, he's working hard, and he's still very active in music.
Tufts is a highly generous school, and its NPC results indicated that we should expect Greg to accumulate about $16,000 in total student loans during his four years there, with no parent loans required. The final results were a little better than that. No parent loans were required, but Greg's student loans were less, a total of $11,000 over his four years at Tufts, which has resulted in total student loan payments of about $100 per month.
Words, as you might expect, cannot describe how pleased Katia and I are with Greg's experience on "The Hill."
Thank you, Tufts, and go Jumbos!
While I'm at it, I ought to mention our daughter Maria, the lovely young lady standing next to the old guy in the picture below, who will graduate from Trinity College in Hartford, CT in May of 2019. At Trinity, Maria is carrying two majors - Math and Urban Studies, as well as two minors - Russian and Models & Data. She also tutors other students, she worked two years with disadvantaged youth at the YMCA downtown, she's doing rocket science in Los Angeles during her last two college summers, and she's an active a cappella singer. Trinity, once again, has honestly generous financial aid, and Maria's numbers should be roughly equal to Greg's. Maybe a little better.
So, Katia and I can only say "Thank you, Trinity College!" and "Go Bantams!"
I. ACG BACKGROUND
Almost all of my working life has been focused on client service. I've had three actual "careers" since law school: first as a lawyer (mainly as a criminal prosecutor and investigation manager), then as a stockbroker, and finally as a commercial and residential real estate broker. In each of these careers, the needs of my clients always came first, and my goal was to help each of my clients achieve the best results possible in their circumstances.
The last of my working careers faded away during the Great Recession, unluckily at the same time as my kids were getting ready to look for colleges. So, I put my client service skills to work on finding colleges that fit both their academic needs and our combined budgets. Just like working for other clients, my goal was not to help my kids find "typical" or "average" opportunities. Rather, it was to find the best opportunities available. Working first with our son Gregory, my goal was to find one opportunity that fully fit his needs, then to find another, and another, and then to use what I had learned to develop a convenient, valid, and repeatable method of finding even more great opportunities for him that year and for our daughter Maria two years later.
Working with Greg, I found that, by using the Net Price Calculator programs that had just been required by Congress, finding affordable colleges was really the easiest part of a college search. Just pick a school, type "net price calculator" in its website's search box, answer their questions, turn the crank, and record its results. With a little practice, the whole process only took ten minutes or so per school, and then we could be certain whether that school would be affordable for us or not.
And, after Greg's matriculation at Tufts in the fall of 2013, I realized that:
1. Although Net Price Calculator programs should have revolutionized the affordability aspect of the college search process, making the burdens of excessive college costs and loans really a matter of choice for students and families, even the most knowledgeable parents and guidance counselors usually knew nothing about them at all;
2. My method of making the best sense out of NPC results was unique, and no one else had published anything addressing the same issues; and
3. Our family's income was in the same range as the median household incomes of a lot of American states – like Washington, New York, Colorado, California, Minnesota, and plenty of others - making the data I had already collected relevant to a lot of other families.
So, I explained it, expanded it, and published it as the American College Generosity website, a site that's now going into its sixth year. In addition to showing families how to do their own financial aid searches and how to make sense out of Net Price Calculator results, I include analyses of the actual costs and available aid at about 125 American colleges for sample families at both the middle and lower income levels. And this site is now used by thousands of American families each year.
ACG has developed into a service project for our family, with all of us involved directly or indirectly. Realizing that Greg's education was largely funded by the generosity of Tufts University - and that Trinity College is now doing the same for our daughter Maria - we offer this service at no charge, doing our best to show our thanks and to broaden the impact of the generosity of their colleges.
II. SINCE 2013
Let's remember that when Greg matriculated at Tufts in August of 2013 it was exactly five years since the law requiring Net Price Calculators was passed by Congress and signed into law by President George Bush the Younger. Let's also remember that back then - due to the failure of government, the schools, and the press - NPCs and the revolutionary impact they could have on the educations of our students were almost completely unknown.
So, what's happened since then? I've been directly involved in promoting NPCs since then, and I can say that NPCs and their potential benefits are just as unknown now as they were then. In fact, I have still never met a parent or student who has heard the phrase "net price calculator" before meeting me. But let's go through the specifics.
MORE COMING SOON HERE, BUT...
I'm hung up on how to handle this section, but I expect to resolve my conflict in the next couple days. Here's the problem:
1. The last five years in financial aid have shown no real progress at all:
A. High schools continue to ignore NPC's, so students and parents continue to accumulate twice as much college debt as necessary. And I have found that high school counselors aren't interested in learning about NPC's at all. For instance, whenever my wife and I travel, I volunteered to do free counselor training at the local high schools, and I have never gotten a response to my e-mails or a call back.
B. American media...
C. The last thing our politicians want to say to voters is, "We solved the problem of excess college costs and loans for you ten years ago, but we made sure it was a secret." Instead, our politicians talk the usual disingenuous nonsense. So, President Obama, who went to Columbia - a top American college - for free (and it still is for lower income families) doesn't tell you that, but he does say that he wants community college to be free for your kids. Columbia for him, and community college for your kids. Thanks, Mr. President. Senator Bernie Sanders...be completely
CHANGE OF APPROACH
One of the fun things about writing a website like this is that, even though it's completely public, and even though it may be used by thousands of families every year, the author can sometimes throw in a few paragraphs - musings, I suppose - which will be completely private in the sense that they are unlikely to be read by anyone. So, here are a few paragraphs of miscellaneous ramblings, typed at my desk in my garage in Poulsbo, WA, beginning at 5:30 AM on the second longest day of 2018.
I'm going to take a different approach in this site. Although I've been at it for over five years, and although I'm disappointed by the fact that I've gotten no support from our schools, our media, and our politicians along the way, that should be of no concern to my target audience - middle and lower income parents of high school students who just want the best dreams of their kids to be fulfilled.
Huge college costs and impossible college loans should already be a thing of the past, because those problems have been easy to avoid since 2011. That was the effective date of a law passed by Congress in 2008 requiring almost all American colleges to include Net Price Calculator programs ("NPC's") on their websites. NPC's allow parents and students to get free, immediate, and highly accurate estimates of the financial aid available to them next year at almost every American college, before they apply to any college this year. Those estimates reflect their family's unique financial situation, and they are required to be 97% accurate. Using those estimates, students and their parents can focus from the outset on only the schools that they can afford, avoiding even the possibility of excessive college costs and loans.
The implications of NPC's were revolutionary, but there was a major defect in the law that established them. It required all colleges receiving federal funds to have NPC's on their websites, and you will find that all American colleges are in full compliance with that law. However, Congress did not require American high schools to tell parents and students about NPC's, and they haven't, then or now. So, even though NPC's have been required for six full years, it is unlikely that you have seen the phrase "Net Price Calculator" before reading it here today. But, you found this site somehow, and you are going to become experts in using NPC's right here in the next hour.
In this site you will learn how to use NPC's effectively, resolving the minor issues that limit their efficiency. You will also review examples of NPC results based on the financial data of two sample families, one at the middle and one at the lower income level, for about 125 American colleges. But your results will be based on your family's own finances, and they will be unique to your family. It will be a fun process of discovery, and your NPC results will help you focus your college search on realistic alternatives that meet your individual needs. I'm certain you will find your NPC results surprising, enlightening, and maybe even life changing.
However, your results will depend on your effort. Your results are truly up to you. To paraphrase Aristotle, "If you do the reps, you'll get the rewards." And the reps themselves are easy. In fact, they are as easy as reading the instructions at the top of the next form and filling in the blanks. This is a PDF version of the form I use for all my published analyses, and this is a great time to get used to it. The layout is the same as a baseball scoreboard, with the name of the school on the left and its final score on the right, and the only math you'll use is easier than on a 1040EZ. Also, unlike typical NPC results, my "Apples-to-Apples" method uses standard dollar amounts for common factors. This both stabilizes and enhances the accuracy of NPC results, especially for more generous colleges, allowing you and your family to make more valid comparisons. In addition to this PDF, I have included a Word version of this form for your convenience at the bottom of all the pages of this website.
Almost all of my working life has been focused on client service. I've had three actual "careers" since law school: first as a lawyer (mainly as a criminal prosecutor and investigation manager), then as a stockbroker, and finally as a commercial and residential real estate broker. In each of these careers, the needs of my clients always came first, and my goal was to help each of my clients achieve the best results possible in their circumstances.
The last of my working careers faded away during the Great Recession, unluckily at the same time as my kids were getting ready to look for colleges. So, I put my client service skills to work on finding colleges that fit both their academic needs and our combined budgets. Just like working for other clients, my goal was not to help my kids find "typical" or "average" opportunities. Rather, it was to find the best opportunities available. Working first with our son Gregory, my goal was to find one opportunity that fully fit his needs, then to find another, and another, and then to use what I had learned to develop a convenient, valid, and repeatable method of finding even more great opportunities for him that year and for our daughter Maria two years later.
Working with Greg, I found that, by using the Net Price Calculator programs that had just been required by Congress, finding affordable colleges was really the easiest part of a college search. Just pick a school, type "net price calculator" in its website's search box, answer their questions, turn the crank, and record its results. With a little practice, the whole process only took ten minutes or so per school, and then we could be certain whether that school would be affordable for us or not.
And, after Greg's matriculation at Tufts in the fall of 2013, I realized that:
1. Although Net Price Calculator programs should have revolutionized the affordability aspect of the college search process, making the burdens of excessive college costs and loans really a matter of choice for students and families, even the most knowledgeable parents and guidance counselors usually knew nothing about them at all;
2. My method of making the best sense out of NPC results was unique, and no one else had published anything addressing the same issues; and
3. Our family's income was in the same range as the median household incomes of a lot of American states – like Washington, New York, Colorado, California, Minnesota, and plenty of others - making the data I had already collected relevant to a lot of other families.
So, I explained it, expanded it, and published it as the American College Generosity website, a site that's now going into its sixth year. In addition to showing families how to do their own financial aid searches and how to make sense out of Net Price Calculator results, I include analyses of the actual costs and available aid at about 125 American colleges for sample families at both the middle and lower income levels. And this site is now used by thousands of American families each year.
ACG has developed into a service project for our family, with all of us involved directly or indirectly. Realizing that Greg's education was largely funded by the generosity of Tufts University - and that Trinity College is now doing the same for our daughter Maria - we offer this service at no charge, doing our best to show our thanks and to broaden the impact of the generosity of their colleges.
II. SINCE 2013
Let's remember that when Greg matriculated at Tufts in August of 2013 it was exactly five years since the law requiring Net Price Calculators was passed by Congress and signed into law by President George Bush the Younger. Let's also remember that back then - due to the failure of government, the schools, and the press - NPCs and the revolutionary impact they could have on the educations of our students were almost completely unknown.
So, what's happened since then? I've been directly involved in promoting NPCs since then, and I can say that NPCs and their potential benefits are just as unknown now as they were then. In fact, I have still never met a parent or student who has heard the phrase "net price calculator" before meeting me. But let's go through the specifics.
MORE COMING SOON HERE, BUT...
I'm hung up on how to handle this section, but I expect to resolve my conflict in the next couple days. Here's the problem:
1. The last five years in financial aid have shown no real progress at all:
A. High schools continue to ignore NPC's, so students and parents continue to accumulate twice as much college debt as necessary. And I have found that high school counselors aren't interested in learning about NPC's at all. For instance, whenever my wife and I travel, I volunteered to do free counselor training at the local high schools, and I have never gotten a response to my e-mails or a call back.
B. American media...
C. The last thing our politicians want to say to voters is, "We solved the problem of excess college costs and loans for you ten years ago, but we made sure it was a secret." Instead, our politicians talk the usual disingenuous nonsense. So, President Obama, who went to Columbia - a top American college - for free (and it still is for lower income families) doesn't tell you that, but he does say that he wants community college to be free for your kids. Columbia for him, and community college for your kids. Thanks, Mr. President. Senator Bernie Sanders...be completely
CHANGE OF APPROACH
One of the fun things about writing a website like this is that, even though it's completely public, and even though it may be used by thousands of families every year, the author can sometimes throw in a few paragraphs - musings, I suppose - which will be completely private in the sense that they are unlikely to be read by anyone. So, here are a few paragraphs of miscellaneous ramblings, typed at my desk in my garage in Poulsbo, WA, beginning at 5:30 AM on the second longest day of 2018.
I'm going to take a different approach in this site. Although I've been at it for over five years, and although I'm disappointed by the fact that I've gotten no support from our schools, our media, and our politicians along the way, that should be of no concern to my target audience - middle and lower income parents of high school students who just want the best dreams of their kids to be fulfilled.
Huge college costs and impossible college loans should already be a thing of the past, because those problems have been easy to avoid since 2011. That was the effective date of a law passed by Congress in 2008 requiring almost all American colleges to include Net Price Calculator programs ("NPC's") on their websites. NPC's allow parents and students to get free, immediate, and highly accurate estimates of the financial aid available to them next year at almost every American college, before they apply to any college this year. Those estimates reflect their family's unique financial situation, and they are required to be 97% accurate. Using those estimates, students and their parents can focus from the outset on only the schools that they can afford, avoiding even the possibility of excessive college costs and loans.
The implications of NPC's were revolutionary, but there was a major defect in the law that established them. It required all colleges receiving federal funds to have NPC's on their websites, and you will find that all American colleges are in full compliance with that law. However, Congress did not require American high schools to tell parents and students about NPC's, and they haven't, then or now. So, even though NPC's have been required for six full years, it is unlikely that you have seen the phrase "Net Price Calculator" before reading it here today. But, you found this site somehow, and you are going to become experts in using NPC's right here in the next hour.
In this site you will learn how to use NPC's effectively, resolving the minor issues that limit their efficiency. You will also review examples of NPC results based on the financial data of two sample families, one at the middle and one at the lower income level, for about 125 American colleges. But your results will be based on your family's own finances, and they will be unique to your family. It will be a fun process of discovery, and your NPC results will help you focus your college search on realistic alternatives that meet your individual needs. I'm certain you will find your NPC results surprising, enlightening, and maybe even life changing.
However, your results will depend on your effort. Your results are truly up to you. To paraphrase Aristotle, "If you do the reps, you'll get the rewards." And the reps themselves are easy. In fact, they are as easy as reading the instructions at the top of the next form and filling in the blanks. This is a PDF version of the form I use for all my published analyses, and this is a great time to get used to it. The layout is the same as a baseball scoreboard, with the name of the school on the left and its final score on the right, and the only math you'll use is easier than on a 1040EZ. Also, unlike typical NPC results, my "Apples-to-Apples" method uses standard dollar amounts for common factors. This both stabilizes and enhances the accuracy of NPC results, especially for more generous colleges, allowing you and your family to make more valid comparisons. In addition to this PDF, I have included a Word version of this form for your convenience at the bottom of all the pages of this website.
| acg_2017-2018_apples-to-apples_template.pdf |
For your convenience, here also is an NPC Data Sheet you and your family can use when filling out NPC's. It's ready for you and your family to fill in your answers to all the questions I was asked by all 125 colleges I analyzed this year. It's thorough, but it will help keep all your family members who fill out your NPC's "singing from the same sheet of music." It's a PDF, but there's a Word version at the bottom of this and every other page of this website.
| acg_2017-2018_family_npc_input_data.pdf |
III. NPC's AND EFC's
Congress required Net Price Calculator programs on college websites to help parents and students sift their affordable from their non-affordable colleges early in their college searches. NPC results are required to be 97% accurate, and NPC's are a great search tool, but they are not applications for financial aid at those colleges. Your actual financial aid applications will come later, usually in January or February, after your students have decided where to apply and after they have filed their actual applications with those schools.
Each of the schools where your children apply will have different requirements for their own financial aid applications, but it's likely that they will all use the results of another application you will fill out online for the US Department of Education, the Free Application for Federal Student Assistance or FAFSA. Since the FAFSA is based on your total income from the previous year, it's another item intended for January and February.
By the way, the Department of Education has recently established procedures that allow early FAFSA filing based on your income from last year, but that's really the answer to the question nobody asked. When you are in the pre-application phase of your college search, before you decide where to actually apply, you're going to sift through a lot of schools, and early filing of your FAFSA won't help you at all.
Why?
1. The only thing the FAFSA gives you is your Expected Family Contribution, your "EFC." But almost all colleges include a reasonably accurate estimate of your EFC in their NPC results anyway, like it or not.
2. Although your Net Price Calculator results at each school where your kids decide to apply should be within 3% of the actual financial aid offers at each college where they are ultimately accepted, your Expected Family Contribution does not have to correlate with your actual aid offers. Consider this: I have Compilations posted near the bottom of this page and on my Examples page listing NPC results for sample families at about 125 schools at both a middle and a lower income level. At each income level the Expected Family Contribution is exactly the same for those families at each of those schools. But the Remaining Balances - bottomline amounts for parents to pay or for the students and parents to borrow - vary among those 125 schools from nothing at all per year to over $50,000 per year. And my calculations of Expected Annual Loans at those income levels and at those schools also vary from nothing at all to over $50,000 per year. So, your NPC results - meaning your expected aid - will correlate directly with your actual aid offers, but those numbers and your EFC will only jive at your more generous college choices.
Congress required Net Price Calculator programs on college websites to help parents and students sift their affordable from their non-affordable colleges early in their college searches. NPC results are required to be 97% accurate, and NPC's are a great search tool, but they are not applications for financial aid at those colleges. Your actual financial aid applications will come later, usually in January or February, after your students have decided where to apply and after they have filed their actual applications with those schools.
Each of the schools where your children apply will have different requirements for their own financial aid applications, but it's likely that they will all use the results of another application you will fill out online for the US Department of Education, the Free Application for Federal Student Assistance or FAFSA. Since the FAFSA is based on your total income from the previous year, it's another item intended for January and February.
By the way, the Department of Education has recently established procedures that allow early FAFSA filing based on your income from last year, but that's really the answer to the question nobody asked. When you are in the pre-application phase of your college search, before you decide where to actually apply, you're going to sift through a lot of schools, and early filing of your FAFSA won't help you at all.
Why?
1. The only thing the FAFSA gives you is your Expected Family Contribution, your "EFC." But almost all colleges include a reasonably accurate estimate of your EFC in their NPC results anyway, like it or not.
2. Although your Net Price Calculator results at each school where your kids decide to apply should be within 3% of the actual financial aid offers at each college where they are ultimately accepted, your Expected Family Contribution does not have to correlate with your actual aid offers. Consider this: I have Compilations posted near the bottom of this page and on my Examples page listing NPC results for sample families at about 125 schools at both a middle and a lower income level. At each income level the Expected Family Contribution is exactly the same for those families at each of those schools. But the Remaining Balances - bottomline amounts for parents to pay or for the students and parents to borrow - vary among those 125 schools from nothing at all per year to over $50,000 per year. And my calculations of Expected Annual Loans at those income levels and at those schools also vary from nothing at all to over $50,000 per year. So, your NPC results - meaning your expected aid - will correlate directly with your actual aid offers, but those numbers and your EFC will only jive at your more generous college choices.
IV. ACG METHODOLOGY
To assure accuracy and consistency in my comparisons, I have established two sample families, one with an income of $60,000 per year, one with an income of $40,000 per year. Full profiles for those families are in the "Input Data" Section near the top of my Examples page, and my specific 2016/2017 NPC input data for both families are in the table below. Since your NPC results will be unique to your family, your results will not be the same as the results for my sample families. Also, all the tables you will see in this website follow the same pattern, with the names of the colleges on the left, the costs and aid for those schools in the middle, and the "Remaining Balance" - what's left for parents to pay or for students and parents to borrow - on the right. The "Student Work" amount of $5,000 assumes a 25 hour per week summer job and an 8 hour per week Work Study job during the school year with both paying $10 per hour. The schools are ranked by the generosity of their financial aid programs at the given income level, with the most generous schools at the top and the least generous schools at the bottom. Finally, I never include any loans as financial aid anywhere in this site. Loans really aren't financial aid, loans are a way to defer the payment of a present cost to a later time while paying an interest fee to cover the amount of delay. So, all the financial aid you will see in this website is loan-free.
Here's a table containing the input data used in all the 2016/2017 Compilations and Comparisons in this site:
To assure accuracy and consistency in my comparisons, I have established two sample families, one with an income of $60,000 per year, one with an income of $40,000 per year. Full profiles for those families are in the "Input Data" Section near the top of my Examples page, and my specific 2016/2017 NPC input data for both families are in the table below. Since your NPC results will be unique to your family, your results will not be the same as the results for my sample families. Also, all the tables you will see in this website follow the same pattern, with the names of the colleges on the left, the costs and aid for those schools in the middle, and the "Remaining Balance" - what's left for parents to pay or for students and parents to borrow - on the right. The "Student Work" amount of $5,000 assumes a 25 hour per week summer job and an 8 hour per week Work Study job during the school year with both paying $10 per hour. The schools are ranked by the generosity of their financial aid programs at the given income level, with the most generous schools at the top and the least generous schools at the bottom. Finally, I never include any loans as financial aid anywhere in this site. Loans really aren't financial aid, loans are a way to defer the payment of a present cost to a later time while paying an interest fee to cover the amount of delay. So, all the financial aid you will see in this website is loan-free.
Here's a table containing the input data used in all the 2016/2017 Compilations and Comparisons in this site:
| acg_2017-2018_input_data.pdf |
V. ACG 2017/2018 COMPILATIONS
Note: This section is a shortened version of my Examples page, and my goal is to show the incredible range in net costs among American colleges. The same disclaimers in the middle of my Examples page also apply here.
These are my Compilations for the 2017/2018 school year. You will see that, just like last year, there are two types of Compilations this year. The first type matches those in this site's first three years where the target value is the Remaining Balance, the leftover amount for Mom and Dad to pay or for the student and parents to borrow. The next type of Compilation has the same layout as the originals, but now the target value is the Expected Annual Loans required at each of the 128 schools analyzed at both the middle and lower income levels.
These 128 schools represent only 5% of the 2500 four-year colleges in America. Also, these Compilations only include cost and aid data as established by the colleges' own Net Price Calculator Programs for my sample families - not your family - and the data are for non-resident or out-of-state students only. The improvement for in-state students at publicly funded in-state schools - and at private ones in some states - is typically huge. As examples, the Remaining Balance for California residents at the $60K income level at UCLA is about $5,000 - or one tenth the amount for out-of-staters, and the Remaining Balance for Washington residents at that income level at the University of Washington is about the same $5,000 - or one eighth the amount for out-of-staters. So, the in-state Remaining Balances of $5,000 for California kids at UCLA and Washington kids at the U-Dub are the rough equivalents of their Expected Family Contributions at that income, making them no-loan offers. But you will see that the Remaining Balances for out-of-staters at both schools result in anything but no-loan offers. Both of these examples show the value of doing your own data, a phrase you will only read about twenty more times in this site.
SOLVING FOR THE "REMAINING BALANCE"
Note: Seven schools at the $60K income level and twenty-two schools at the $40K income level have Remaining Balance amounts that are below zero. Negative Remaining Balances typically occur when highly generous schools have a lower expectation of Student Work than the standard used in the ACG website, and these amounts are not refunded to parents or students.
Now, here's the Compilation for our $60K data set solving for the Remaining Balance:
Note: This section is a shortened version of my Examples page, and my goal is to show the incredible range in net costs among American colleges. The same disclaimers in the middle of my Examples page also apply here.
These are my Compilations for the 2017/2018 school year. You will see that, just like last year, there are two types of Compilations this year. The first type matches those in this site's first three years where the target value is the Remaining Balance, the leftover amount for Mom and Dad to pay or for the student and parents to borrow. The next type of Compilation has the same layout as the originals, but now the target value is the Expected Annual Loans required at each of the 128 schools analyzed at both the middle and lower income levels.
These 128 schools represent only 5% of the 2500 four-year colleges in America. Also, these Compilations only include cost and aid data as established by the colleges' own Net Price Calculator Programs for my sample families - not your family - and the data are for non-resident or out-of-state students only. The improvement for in-state students at publicly funded in-state schools - and at private ones in some states - is typically huge. As examples, the Remaining Balance for California residents at the $60K income level at UCLA is about $5,000 - or one tenth the amount for out-of-staters, and the Remaining Balance for Washington residents at that income level at the University of Washington is about the same $5,000 - or one eighth the amount for out-of-staters. So, the in-state Remaining Balances of $5,000 for California kids at UCLA and Washington kids at the U-Dub are the rough equivalents of their Expected Family Contributions at that income, making them no-loan offers. But you will see that the Remaining Balances for out-of-staters at both schools result in anything but no-loan offers. Both of these examples show the value of doing your own data, a phrase you will only read about twenty more times in this site.
SOLVING FOR THE "REMAINING BALANCE"
Note: Seven schools at the $60K income level and twenty-two schools at the $40K income level have Remaining Balance amounts that are below zero. Negative Remaining Balances typically occur when highly generous schools have a lower expectation of Student Work than the standard used in the ACG website, and these amounts are not refunded to parents or students.
Now, here's the Compilation for our $60K data set solving for the Remaining Balance:
| acg-2017-_60k-compilation.pdf |
And here's the Compilation for our $40K data set solving for the Remaining Balance:
| acg-2017-_40k-compilation.pdf |
Note: Let's take a pause and look at the "bookends", the most and least generous schools in both of those Compilations, because the bookend results reflect a very important concept. And let's remember here that my input data were the same at each income level for all the schools in those Compilations, and let's remember also that my results reflect costs and aid for non-resident students only, where the results for resident students will be a lot better at most publicly funded schools than they are for non-residents.
The most generous college in my $60K Compilation is Stanford, the least generous college in that Compilation is the University of California at Berkeley, and the differences in their net costs to middle income Moms and Dads is about $61,609 per year. The most generous college in my $40K Compilation is the Vanderbilt University, the least generous college in that Compilation is again the University of California at Berkeley, and the differences in their net costs to lower income Moms and Dads is about $60,292 per year.
It's obvious that if we compare the quality of Stanford and Berkeley, we'll find they're both superb schools; and a comparison of the Vanderbilt University and Berkeley will yield the same conclusion. So, how should parents and students account for the wild variation in net cost for Stanford and Vanderbilt on the one hand and Berkeley on the other?
The answer is that the net costs of colleges for middle and lower income families vary on their generosity, not their quality. And the only way to find out which schools will be the most generous to your family and your students is by inputting your own data in their individual NPC's and comparing your results.
The most generous college in my $60K Compilation is Stanford, the least generous college in that Compilation is the University of California at Berkeley, and the differences in their net costs to middle income Moms and Dads is about $61,609 per year. The most generous college in my $40K Compilation is the Vanderbilt University, the least generous college in that Compilation is again the University of California at Berkeley, and the differences in their net costs to lower income Moms and Dads is about $60,292 per year.
It's obvious that if we compare the quality of Stanford and Berkeley, we'll find they're both superb schools; and a comparison of the Vanderbilt University and Berkeley will yield the same conclusion. So, how should parents and students account for the wild variation in net cost for Stanford and Vanderbilt on the one hand and Berkeley on the other?
The answer is that the net costs of colleges for middle and lower income families vary on their generosity, not their quality. And the only way to find out which schools will be the most generous to your family and your students is by inputting your own data in their individual NPC's and comparing your results.
SOLVING FOR "EXPECTED ANNUAL LOANS"
(Where the Remaining Balance minus the Expected Family Contribution equals the Expected Annual Loans.)
Note: You will see in these two Compilations that families should expect no-loan offers at 30 schools in the $60K Compilation and at 32 schools in the $40K Compilation, but that doesn't make the Remaining Balances - the Mom and Dad column - the same for all the schools. Between the schools where no loans are expected, there is still a $6,525 range in the annual Remaining Balances at $60K and a $5,346 range at $40K. Additionally, although there is a great deal of commonality in the schools with expected no-loan offers on the $60K and $40K lists, that does not mean that those schools will have expected no-loan offers at all income levels. As always, the only way to find out your own results is to do your own data.
Now, here's the Compilation for our $60K data set solving for Expected Annual Loans:
(Where the Remaining Balance minus the Expected Family Contribution equals the Expected Annual Loans.)
Note: You will see in these two Compilations that families should expect no-loan offers at 30 schools in the $60K Compilation and at 32 schools in the $40K Compilation, but that doesn't make the Remaining Balances - the Mom and Dad column - the same for all the schools. Between the schools where no loans are expected, there is still a $6,525 range in the annual Remaining Balances at $60K and a $5,346 range at $40K. Additionally, although there is a great deal of commonality in the schools with expected no-loan offers on the $60K and $40K lists, that does not mean that those schools will have expected no-loan offers at all income levels. As always, the only way to find out your own results is to do your own data.
Now, here's the Compilation for our $60K data set solving for Expected Annual Loans:
| acg-2017-_60k-expected_loan_compilation.pdf |
And here's the Compilation for our $40K data set solving for Expected Annual Loans:
| acg-2017-_40k-expected_loan_compilation.pdf |
VI. OTHER GENEROUS COLLEGES
One of the purposes of this site is to demonstrate the incredible variation in net costs among American colleges, even among schools doing similar things in similar ways in similar areas. I chose the original list of colleges that I analyzed for a lot of different reasons, but I wanted them to represent all regions of our country. Back then, I wasn't really interested in identifying all the generous colleges in America, but now I can't think of a good reason not to.
So, if you represent a college that you think fits somewhere in the top half of my Compilations, act like a visitor to your website, run your NPC using my $60K and $40K input data, and plug your numbers into my Apples-to-Apples comparison form at the bottom of this page. If it looks like you fit, send me an e-mail. I'll respond to your message within one day, I'll confirm your numbers within three days, and - if all goes well - you'll be on the list within a week. But there are two caveats I need to mention. First, if your school uses the most basic NPC software - the one that purports to show both need and merit-based aid without even asking the student's GPA, test scores, class rank, et cetera - I won't list your school because your results will automatically be suspect. Second, if your Expected Loan Differential is upside down, meaning my lower income sample family is socked with higher Expected Annual Loans than my middle income sample family, I will not publish your data until your school has resolved that discrepancy.
Here's my 2016/2017 input data, and I look forward to hearing from you:
One of the purposes of this site is to demonstrate the incredible variation in net costs among American colleges, even among schools doing similar things in similar ways in similar areas. I chose the original list of colleges that I analyzed for a lot of different reasons, but I wanted them to represent all regions of our country. Back then, I wasn't really interested in identifying all the generous colleges in America, but now I can't think of a good reason not to.
So, if you represent a college that you think fits somewhere in the top half of my Compilations, act like a visitor to your website, run your NPC using my $60K and $40K input data, and plug your numbers into my Apples-to-Apples comparison form at the bottom of this page. If it looks like you fit, send me an e-mail. I'll respond to your message within one day, I'll confirm your numbers within three days, and - if all goes well - you'll be on the list within a week. But there are two caveats I need to mention. First, if your school uses the most basic NPC software - the one that purports to show both need and merit-based aid without even asking the student's GPA, test scores, class rank, et cetera - I won't list your school because your results will automatically be suspect. Second, if your Expected Loan Differential is upside down, meaning my lower income sample family is socked with higher Expected Annual Loans than my middle income sample family, I will not publish your data until your school has resolved that discrepancy.
Here's my 2016/2017 input data, and I look forward to hearing from you:
| acg_2017-2018_input_data.pdf |
VII. ON AMERICAN COLLEGE GENEROSITY
Generosity was the inspiration for this site, and generosity is its theme.
The word generosity frequently came to me as I began helping my son with his college search seven years ago, as I did the same for my daughter five years ago, and as I have continued my research for this site. I have been continuously inspired by the generosity of the alumni and other benefactors of American colleges who have made educations at their schools possible for our children.
Sometimes extending back for centuries, their generosity has shown a remarkable and lasting faith in their schools and in the generations of students who would benefit from their gifts. I thank them, and I hope we can show ourselves worthy of both their generosity and their foresight.
But their generosity had a purpose. It formed a system, a loop, linking previous generations of students with the present generation. And it was a benefit that needed a beneficiary for its purpose to succeed. Without you, without your openness to that generosity, the loop will be interrupted, and this system of generosity will fail.
I originally wrote this site in the last months of 2013, an important anniversary of the seminal event in American college generosity. Three hundred and seventy-five years before then, a very young and well-educated minister died in the Massachusetts Bay Colony leaving half of his wealth and all of his 260 books to a new school founded two years before in a neighboring village, a school named for him in gratitude two years later.
Reverend John Harvard intended that his resources and library would be used for the enlightenment of the teachers and students of that new school. But, if his money had just been locked in a safe, and if his books were just locked in cases, the purpose of his generosity would have failed. Instead, his generosity was used to its fullest, becoming an invitation to the generosity of others and resulting in one of the world’s finest universities served by the greatest university library in the world.
The system of American college generosity began there in 1638, it continues to spread and flourish, and its fruit is within your reach today.
May its purpose be validated in you, may your educations be complete, and may your best dreams be fulfilled.
Mark Warns, JD
Founder, Author & Analyst
American College Generosity
Generosity was the inspiration for this site, and generosity is its theme.
The word generosity frequently came to me as I began helping my son with his college search seven years ago, as I did the same for my daughter five years ago, and as I have continued my research for this site. I have been continuously inspired by the generosity of the alumni and other benefactors of American colleges who have made educations at their schools possible for our children.
Sometimes extending back for centuries, their generosity has shown a remarkable and lasting faith in their schools and in the generations of students who would benefit from their gifts. I thank them, and I hope we can show ourselves worthy of both their generosity and their foresight.
But their generosity had a purpose. It formed a system, a loop, linking previous generations of students with the present generation. And it was a benefit that needed a beneficiary for its purpose to succeed. Without you, without your openness to that generosity, the loop will be interrupted, and this system of generosity will fail.
I originally wrote this site in the last months of 2013, an important anniversary of the seminal event in American college generosity. Three hundred and seventy-five years before then, a very young and well-educated minister died in the Massachusetts Bay Colony leaving half of his wealth and all of his 260 books to a new school founded two years before in a neighboring village, a school named for him in gratitude two years later.
Reverend John Harvard intended that his resources and library would be used for the enlightenment of the teachers and students of that new school. But, if his money had just been locked in a safe, and if his books were just locked in cases, the purpose of his generosity would have failed. Instead, his generosity was used to its fullest, becoming an invitation to the generosity of others and resulting in one of the world’s finest universities served by the greatest university library in the world.
The system of American college generosity began there in 1638, it continues to spread and flourish, and its fruit is within your reach today.
May its purpose be validated in you, may your educations be complete, and may your best dreams be fulfilled.
Mark Warns, JD
Founder, Author & Analyst
American College Generosity
Copyright 2018, Mark Warns, All Rights Reserved
| acg_2017-2018_apples-to-apples_template.docx |
| acg_2017-2018_family_npc_input_data.docx |