Scenario guides
A published price tells you what a school costs. A net price calculator estimates the aid you might get. Neither answers the question that decides what you actually pay: which financial decisions matter, and how much each one is worth.
Each guide runs hundreds of fully-specified family scenarios through the same engine that builds our plans, then reports what the numbers say — including where the answer is “this is worth nothing to you.” Every figure is recomputed each time the site is built, so none of it goes stale.
How to pay for the University of California
What nine UC campuses actually cost a family, in-state and out-of-state, and which decisions change the number — from hundreds of payment scenarios run through our engine.
162 scenarios · 9 campuses · in-state median $9,900 · out-of-state median $85,571 · for families choosing among UC campuses, in-state or out
How to pay for SUNY
New York made SUNY tuition free under $125,000 — and created the sharpest aid cliff in American public higher education. What 500+ payment scenarios across 21 campuses show.
504 scenarios · 21 campuses · in-state median $11,533 · out-of-state median $31,217 · for families choosing among SUNY campuses, in New York or out
How these are produced
Each scenario states its own inputs — income, savings, residency, and the grant aid assumed, with the basis for that assumption. Nothing is an average or a forecast. The outcomes come from the same deterministic engine a paid plan uses, so a guide and a plan can never disagree.
Where a scenario requires borrowing a family plainly cannot service, we say so rather than reporting it as a saving.