Guides to paying for college
A published price tells you what a school costs. A school's 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 prices hundreds of scenarios the same way we price a plan, then says what the numbers show, including where the answer is “this is worth nothing to you.” We work out every figure again 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, priced with the same calculations as our plans.
162 scenarios · 9 campuses · a plan worth a median of $9,350 in state and $74,531 out of state · for families choosing among UC campuses, in-state or out
How to pay for SUNY
New York made SUNY tuition free for families earning up to $125,000. A dollar over, the whole award is gone.
504 scenarios · 21 campuses · a plan worth a median of $9,525 in state and $19,350 out of state · for families choosing among SUNY campuses, in New York or out
How to pay for Cal State
California guarantees tuition money to qualifying Cal State families by law, and at the 23 campuses, debt a family could not repay almost never appears, even out of state.
414 scenarios · 23 campuses · a plan worth a median of $6,662 in state and $21,229 out of state · for families choosing among CSU campuses, in California or out
How to pay for Florida's public universities
Florida's biggest aid cliff has no income test at all. It is made of GPA and test scores, set years before any bill arrives.
216 scenarios · 12 campuses · a plan worth a median of $9,900 in state and $16,320 out of state · for families choosing among State University System of Florida campuses
How to pay for the University of Texas system
Nine UT campuses settled on one income line, then wrote nine different sets of conditions under it. This guide asks which promise a family can actually keep for four years.
162 scenarios · 9 campuses · a plan worth a median of $6,207 in state and $26,288 out of state · for families choosing among UT System campuses
How to pay for the Texas A&M system
Texas A&M's flagship promise tests assets as well as income, so the 529 a family saved can cost it the award.
198 scenarios · 11 campuses · a plan worth a median of $5,600 in state and $18,637 out of state · for families choosing among Texas A&M System universities
How to pay for the UNC system
North Carolina set the price itself: $500-a-semester tuition at four campuses, with no eligibility test of any kind. We priced what that does to a four-year bill at all 16 universities.
288 scenarios · 16 campuses · a plan worth a median of $6,142 in state and $16,358 out of state · for families choosing among UNC System universities, in North Carolina or out
How to pay for Washington's public universities
Washington replaced the aid cliff with a staircase: the College Grant steps down in bands instead of vanishing at a line. We measured the stairs and priced all eight public universities.
144 scenarios · 8 campuses · a plan worth a median of $7,000 in state and $33,869 out of state · for families choosing among Washington public four-year institutions
How to pay for Virginia's public universities
Virginia's aid law names no income line. The real policy lives on campus pages, and UVA's reaches all the way to room and board.
270 scenarios · 15 campuses · a plan worth a median of $8,867 in state and $39,937 out of state · for families choosing among Virginia public four-year institutions
How to pay for Georgia's public universities
Georgia's HOPE Scholarship needs a GPA of 3.0 and can be worth tens of thousands of dollars over four years. Zell Miller needs a 3.7 and adds a few hundred more.
378 scenarios · 21 campuses · a plan worth a median of $6,960 in state and $11,997 out of state · for families choosing among University System of Georgia universities
How we make them
Each scenario prints what went into it: the income, the savings, whether the student is in state, and the grant aid we assumed, with our reason for assuming it. Each result is one family's, not an average, and none is a forecast. Where a guide uses a campus's own figures, the grant is the one the campus reports for families at that income. The figures come from the same calculations a paid plan uses, so a guide and a plan can never disagree.
Where a scenario needs more borrowing than a family could plainly repay, we say so rather than call it a saving.