Before you choose
What you can afford
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. Tell us who you are and this page shows the limits you are near and the dates that still matter. Add what you have — savings, a monthly amount, what each of you could borrow — and the page works out the highest first-year price, after grants, that your family could pay. That is your line. The schools you name are priced for your family, compared with your line, and checked against the limits that apply at each.
Every income limit on this page comes from a state law or a university's own published policy, and our guides quote the source. The school prices come from the U.S. Department of Education. Each school reports what families at your income level actually paid, and we project that to your start year. Those figures describe students who received aid, so your own award will differ. Nothing here is an offer from a school.
Your family
Who you are
The student
For scholarships that pay for grades and test scores. Leave these blank to skip them.
What you have, and what you could borrow
At each school
The schools you are considering
Add up to eight schools. They do not have to be realistic yet. We price each one for a family at your income level.
- Davidson College
Fill in the section above and we will price these schools.
Next
Already have an award letter? Build a plan. It starts from what you entered here.
Build a payment plan →Not yet? Award letters arrive in mid-March. Come back when you have yours.
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 automatic scholarships of 24 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.