Two different prices
Every college has two prices. The published price is what a full year costs with no help at all: tuition, housing, food and books. The net price is what is left after subtracting the grants and scholarships that do not have to be paid back.
The gap between the two can be huge. So before you cross a college off the list because of its published price, look at the second number.
Where scholarships come from
Aid that does not have to be repaid usually comes from four places:
- The federal government. The best known is the Pell Grant, for students from low-income families. You apply through the FAFSA.
- The state. Many states have their own grants for residents.
- The college itself. Many colleges, public and private, give their own aid.
- Private organizations. Foundations, companies and communities give smaller scholarships that add up.
Loans are not scholarships: they are paid back. When you read an aid letter, always separate what is given from what is lent.
How to read the net price on Veritat
Each Veritat page shows what families who received federal aid paid on average after grants and aid, by income, using U.S. government data from the 2022-23 school year. It is a real average of real families, not a quote for yours. For your own case, use the net price calculator each college has on its website, with your family's numbers.
To compare many at once, the Real cost explorer lets you pick your income and sort 3,012 colleges from cheapest to most expensive.
If your child is undocumented
Federal aid, including the Pell Grant, is not available to students without eligible immigration status. That does not mean there is no help: some states and some colleges offer their own. The only way to know is to ask each college, directly and in writing, whether its own aid applies to your child.
Where lower-income families paid the least
These are the colleges where families earning under $30,000 a year who received federal aid paid the least on average, after grants and aid. A negative number means the aid was larger than the cost.
| College | State | Type | Average net price per year (under $30,000) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Massachusetts Institute of Technology | MA | Private | −$4,129 |
| San Diego Mesa College | CA | Public | −$3,351 |
| Skyline College | CA | Public | −$3,190 |
| St Petersburg College | FL | Public | −$2,566 |
| Williams College | MA | Private | −$2,421 |
| Brown University | RI | Private | −$2,158 |
| University of Chicago | IL | Private | −$1,428 |
| University of Minnesota-Morris | MN | Public | −$544 |
| Stanford University | CA | Private | −$79 |
| Henry Ford College | MI | Public | $55 |
| Washington and Lee University | VA | Private | $76 |
| CUNY Hunter College | NY | Public | $262 |
| Florida State College at Jacksonville | FL | Public | $664 |
| CUNY Bernard M Baruch College | NY | Public | $745 |
| South Texas College | TX | Public | $895 |
| Florida Gateway College | FL | Public | $960 |
| Seminole State College of Florida | FL | Public | $974 |
| University of Pennsylvania | PA | Private | $1,026 |
| University of Florida-Online | FL | Public | $1,035 |
| Northwestern University | IL | Private | $1,243 |
In total, at 143 colleges families earning under $30,000 paid less than $5,000 a year, and 111 of them are public.
Where the price dropped most after grants and aid
Here is the biggest gap between the published price and the average net price of families earning $30,000 to $48,000 who received federal aid. These colleges have a high published price, yet those families paid little or nothing on average.
| College | Published price | Average net price ($30,000 to $48,000) |
|---|---|---|
| University of Chicago | $90,360 | −$294 |
| Stanford University | $87,833 | −$350 |
| Dartmouth College | $87,793 | −$377 |
| Northwestern University | $91,290 | $3,373 |
| Duke University | $87,072 | $242 |
| Haverford College | $90,382 | $3,619 |
| Washington University in St Louis | $88,488 | $2,321 |
| Washington and Lee University | $87,000 | $887 |
| California Institute of Technology | $86,886 | $1,023 |
| Williams College | $84,860 | −$919 |
What to do this week
- Fill out the FAFSA as soon as it opens. Without it there is no Pell Grant, and many colleges ask for it before giving their own aid.
- Pick three colleges and use their net price calculator with your family's real numbers.
- When the aid letters arrive, compare them by separating grants from loans.
I hope this information is valuable to you.