What you can afford
Tell us about your family and the colleges on your list. We'll work out the most you could pay for a year, and what each college would cost you.
When does your student start college?
Which colleges are you looking at?
- University of Alaska Fairbanks
Up to eight. They don't have to be realistic yet.
Kept in this browser only. Where our figures come from ↓
Get reminders for the dates that matter
We'll email you on the dates that matter: when the FAFSA opens, when award letters arrive, and before you choose a college and pay the first bill. If college is two or more years away, we'll also email you when the tax year that counts begins and when it has a month left.
Have your award letter?
Your plan shows which money pays each bill, semester by semester, and which loans to take, if any. It starts from what you enter here.
Build your plan, $99 →How we worked these out
The limits and the most you could pay
Some aid has an income limit: a figure, published by the state or the university, above which a program stops paying. A dollar over one can cost tens of thousands over four years. Whether you are over is decided early: federal and most state aid looks at income from the tax year two years before, and at savings on the day the FAFSA is filed. The most you could pay is the highest first-year price, after grants, that your family could pay from what you have and what each of you could borrow.
What the order saves
The difference, over four years, between paying in the order that costs least and the usual way: savings first, then loans for the rest. It counts loan interest and the federal tax credit.
To claim this credit, the parent who claims it and the student each need a Social Security number that is valid for work. A family that files with a taxpayer ID number instead gets no credit.
Where the figures come from
Every income limit on this page comes from a state law or a university's own published policy, and our guides quote the source. A college's price is what it charges: tuition and fees, housing and food on campus, and books. We take those from the U.S. Department of Education, or from the college's own published price where we have recorded it, and project them to your start year. From that we take off the average grant the Department reports for families at your income. The Department's own figure for a year also counts travel and spending money, which the college doesn't bill and a 529 can't pay for. We leave those out. At some colleges we still use the Department's figure for a year, until we have read the college's own prices. The grants are averages for students who received aid, so your own award will differ. Nothing here is an offer from a school.
What this cannot tell you yet
We include merit scholarships only where we have checked the rules against their source. So far, that is Georgia's HOPE and Zell Miller, Florida's Bright Futures and Benacquisto, California's Cal Grant A, New York's STEM Incentive, Washington's College Bound, Tennessee's lottery scholarships and Arkansas's Academic Challenge, at each state's public colleges, and the scholarships of 34 universities. Elsewhere, at a school that gives aid for grades or test scores, your cost could be much lower than shown. Out-of-state prices at public universities come from the school's own price calculator where it publishes its figures. Otherwise the price is the out-of-state cost less any Pell Grant, before aid from the school itself, and you can enter the school's own estimate instead. Where a school reports nothing for your income level, we say so and do not guess.
When your award letter arrives, a full payment plan works out the order to pay in. That is where the remaining savings are.