Calculating Net Cost of Attendance

What is total cost of attendance?

Our figure for the cost of attendance is the combined total of tuition and fees, room and board, books and supplies, and transportation and personal expenses, as estimated by campuses for the 2009-10 academic year. In actual practice, these amounts may vary to account for different academic programs and individual student circumstances.

What is net cost of attendance?

We define net cost of attendance as the sum of the family's contribution from income and assets, and a "self-help" amount contributed separately by the student.

Family contribution is the total of what the parent(s) and student are expected to contribute from their respective income and assets. All institutions use a formula to calculate the parent contribution; this formula, which is not the same for every school, uses parents' income, certain assets, and other information to determine what parents can afford to pay. Some institutions calculate student contributions with a similar formula, while others set a minimum student contribution of income through summer earnings.  

Self-help consists of student loans and academic year work.

What formula is used to calculate the family contribution?

Except in cases where the college has publicly disclosed a non-standard formula, we used EFC worksheets for the 2009-10 award year from the College Board to calculate the parent contribution and student contribution where applicable. Institutions use one of two formulas to calculate financial need. The Federal Methodology (FM) is the same regardless of the college the student is applying to; the Institutional Methodology (IM) differs from FM and allows campuses to deviate from the standard IM formula. For example, an institution might limit the amount of assets it considers. The figures here use the standard IM formula

Note: The calculator on the College Board's website uses the same methodology as the worksheets, but is for the 2010-11 award year.

Don't family characteristics impact financial need?

Yes. Features like household size, state of residence, and parent age can affect the calculation of EFC. See below for assumptions made about our sample student's circumstances.

What assumptions are made about a family's financial position?

1.      Two parents earning equal salaries contribute to the cost of attendance. The older parent is 45.

2.      The student is a 17 year old prospective first-year college student in the 2009-10 year, is applying for college in-state, and has a 15 year old sibling not yet in college.

3.      Eligible families claim all available earned income and child tax credits.

4.      The student earned $1,500 from part-time or summer work in 2008.

5.      We consulted the Federal Reserve's Survey of Consumer Finances to create the following representation of typical assets by income: