The Cost of College: Sizing It Up Beyond the Sticker Price [feedly]

The Cost of College: Sizing It Up Beyond the Sticker Price
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If college prices are sending chills down your spine, join the club. With the priciest schools charging over $40,000 in just tuition—and that doesn't even touch room, board or book costs—financial planning for higher education can feel like a 24/7 anxiety nightmare. The good and bad news is that assessing whether a school is affordable goes far beyond looking at sticker price. Shake off your fears, take a deep breath, and read up on how to find out a school's real price.

This post originally appeared on Schools.com.

Sticker Versus Net Price

When colleges advertise their tuition and fees, they are most likely lying to you… and that's a good thing. According to the College Board, the average advertised tuition and fees at four-year in-state public institutions was $8,893 per year; however, the average net price students actually paid was only $3,120. Since many private institutions have endowments that put public schools to shame, discounts there are even more dramatic. The typical four-year private nonprofit school boasts a price that tops $30,000 annually, but the average student pays less than half.

To give families a more realistic financial picture, the Department of Education requires that all schools participating in federal student aid programs include a net price calculator on their websites. The problem, says Kalman Chany, author of "Paying for College Without Going Broke," is that these net price calculators aren't standardized and can be off by up to $10,000 per year.

"Some take into account merit-based money, others don't," he says. "[Net price calculators] are not a reliable tool."

The National Center for Education Statistics takes a uniform approach to breaking down net prices of thousands of institutions according to income bracket. In addition to plugging your information into the school's net price calculator, prospective students and their families can head to the NCES's College Navigator to compare college prices.