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Help with College Cost and Financial Aid

You know college is important but …

How much will it really cost?

Can you get aid to reduce the cost?

Can you afford it?

How will you manage the cost?

 Help from Financial Aid Experts!

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Answers to your Questions

Help with your Planning

Relief for your Anxiety

See also: Who we are Colleges we have experience with

 

Making Sense of College Cost and Financial Aid

Cost and aid are critical factors in the decisions students make about whether and where to attend college.1 The average published cost of a private college is $57,570 per year, of a public college it is $27,940 per year for in-state residents and $45,240 for non-residents.2 And the average cost at the US News top-ranked colleges is $82,789 per year.3

Yet the amount students actually pay, the net price, is often significantly less. For private colleges the average net price for the 2022-23 academic year was $32,800, a discount of $24,770 from the published price. In 2019-20, the latest year for which data are available, 88% of first-time full-time undergraduate students at private colleges received gift aid – only 12% paid the full price. For in-state students at public colleges the average net price is $19,250, a discount of $8,690 from the published cost. At public colleges in 2019-20 fewer than a quarter of students paid full price, while 78% of first-time full-time students received gift aid.4

But you’re not “average” – you have your own unique talents, abilities, and financial situation. How do you know whether you can get a discount on the cost of college, and how much will it be? ScholarFITS will help you find the answers!

 

1 For over 50 years the Cooperative Institutional Research Program at UCLA has interviewed college students. In the 2018 study, over 97,000 students identified the factors they considered “very important” in selecting their college. The top choices, in order, were academic reputation (chosen by 68% of students), prospects of a good job after graduation (59%), availability of financial aid (49%), and the cost of the college (47%).  The American Freshman 2018, CIRP.

2 Tuition and fees, room and board, plus allowances for books, travel, and miscellaneous expenses for the 2022-23 academic year, from Trends in College Pricing by the College Board.

3 Data compiled by ScholarFITS from US News (2023 top 10 Liberal Arts and National Universities, excluding the US Naval and Military Academies) and National Center for Education Statistics websites, 3/16/23.

4 Trends in College Pricing by the College Board.

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