Our belief is that the smartest college choices are made when individuals are well-informed and understand ahead of time the net cost of going to college. It took us almost three years to create the most sophisticated, comprehensive, and flexible net cost calculator technology in the nation. Our Student Aid Estimator™ provides personalized net cost estimates that are based on a student's unique and specific circumstances. To ensure accuracy, we have tested our service on 25 million test cases and with more than 28,000 real families.


To review information on our:

  1. Net Cost Calculator technology available for licensing to colleges, click here.
  2. College Cost & Planning Report™ or the services offered at StudentAid.com, click here.

Student Aid Estimator™ is the best net cost calculator available

The Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008 mandates that all colleges build a net cost calculator for prospective students by the fall of 2011. Our Student Aid Estimator™ provides prospective students with highly personalized and reliable net cost estimates. Learn more about our capabilities by contacting our College Relations group via email at colleges@studentaid.com or call 877-987-5079.

Here is what makes our net cost calculator different:


  • Flexibility and Customization
    Each net cost calculator that we implement is customized to meet your specific needs. Our calculator can fit seamlessly into your current website or we can host it on an external website. You have the option to adjust the style, number of questions, and output screen content that each prospective student will see. If you are a college that uses institutional methodology (IM) to award aid, we can readily and quickly create a custom calculator to match your unique requirements.
  • User-friendly
    We provide an intuitive user experience that guides students through the data collection process and presents a professional impression of your college. We help your prospective students understand and answer student aid questions that tend be confusing. We encourage you to experience first-hand the user-friendly features of our service by requesting a demonstration.
  • Accuracy
    Our Student Aid Estimator™ gives prospective students and their families the most realistic estimation of their net cost of college. We don't use ‘averages’ or ‘ranges’ to calculate an individual’s net cost estimates.
    • Program Eligibility - Our technology evaluates a student’s eligibility for student aid programs based on their specific personal circumstances. For example, students who haven’t completed a rigorous secondary school program of study won’t be considered for an Academic Competitiveness Grant (ACG). If you are a Californian college, we ensure that California residents who don’t meet the appropriate income and asset ceilings and GPA requirements won’t be considered for a CAL Grant. If your college has specific program eligibility requirements, we can customize your calculator accordingly.
    • Packaging Policies - No matter what type of packaging technique you use, we can provide a Student Aid Estimator™ customized to reflect your college’s approach to enrollment and financial aid. We work with your financial aid office to calibrate the algorithms offered on your college calculator to ensure that estimates provided to prospective students are reliable and representative of the aid award letter that each admitted student will receive in the spring prior to matriculation.
  • Proven technology
    25 million student case studies and 28,000 real college-bound families make our Student Aid Estimator™ the most proven net cost calculator available to colleges and universities. If you want proven technology, we have it.
  • It’s more than a net cost calculator!
    Complying with the requirements of the Higher Education Opportunity Act (2008) is just a starting point. Your custom Student Aid Estimator™ is a powerful recruiting, communication, and lead generation tool . Be sure to talk to one of our representatives on how our technologies can meet the needs of both your admissions and your financial aid department.

To schedule a demonstration of our technologies or to learn more about our capabilities, contact our College Relations group via email at colleges@studentaid.com or call 877-987-5079.

Helping prospective students with a College Cost & Planning Report™

At StudentAid.com a prospective student can order a personalized, College Cost & Planning Report to help them with their college planning. Our goal is to provide prospective students interested in your college with the most accurate and comprehensive information available. As part of our commitment to increasing college Access for All™ we provide our services free of charge to Pell–eligible students from families with an income of less than $40,000.

We welcome the involvement and input of college admission and financial aid offices to help us in this mission, and we gladly let every college update an extensive profile of information that we provide to all of the students we assist. Our college-specific information includes:

  • General college information – such as address, telephone numbers, and enrollment statistics
  • Cost of attendance figures
  • Student demographic data
  • Admissions, retention, and graduation statistics
  • "Did You Know?" facts—more colorful information that highlights your college's unique attributes and helps to inform students about the personality, character, and type of college experience that is offered

We have coded many colleges who have published their student aid eligibility programs and would like to code more—because we believe in providing the best, most accurate information we can to prospective students. By working closely with your college's financial aid office, we can incorporate your college's aid eligibility requirements and packaging policies to ensure that the information we provide to students is as accurate as possible.

Specifically, we can update our Student Aid Estimator™ Algorithm to:

  • Determine eligibility and likely award estimates for your college-specific grants and scholarships
  • Integrate loan limits and tuition discounts in award estimates
  • Use your college's packaging method when calculating awards

Contact our College Relations group

If you have questions or comments, are interested in updating your college's admissions and financial information, or would like more information about how we can help you build a best-in-class net cost calculator, e-mail us at colleges@studentaid.com or call 877-987-5079.

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