True Cost of College Calculator
Takes ~90 seconds · Data sourced from IPEDS & BLS
Tell us about the school
Tell us about your family finances
After graduation
💡 Ways to reduce your cost
Real net price data for popular schools
Why net price is what actually matters
Every college publishes a "sticker price" — tuition, room and board, fees. The average sticker price at a four-year private nonprofit college is over $58,000 per year. But the average student at that same school pays far less. According to IPEDS data, the average net price — after grants and scholarships — is closer to $28,000 at private schools, and under $15,000 at public schools for in-state students.
The gap exists because most students receive some combination of need-based grants (Pell, institutional aid) and merit scholarships. The federal government requires every college to publish a Net Price Calculator, but those tools are notoriously inaccurate, buried in obscure corners of college websites, and designed with government compliance in mind rather than real transparency.
What changed for 2026–27: new federal borrowing limits
Families planning for the 2026–27 school year are borrowing under meaningfully different rules than a year ago. As of July 1, 2026:
- Parent PLUS loans are now capped at $20,000 per year and $65,000 total per student — previously, Parent PLUS had no cap at all, so this closes a gap some families relied on to cover full sticker price.
- Grad PLUS loans are eliminated for new borrowers. Graduate students are now limited to Direct Unsubsidized loans: $20,500/yr ($100,000 lifetime) for most programs, or $50,000/yr ($200,000 lifetime) for professional programs like medicine and law.
- Federal student loan rates rose to 6.52% for undergraduates, 8.07% for graduate Unsubsidized loans, and 9.07% for Parent PLUS — all fixed for the life of the loan.
- Pell Grant eligibility now has a hard income cutoff: students with a Student Aid Index at or above roughly $14,790 (twice the maximum Pell award) no longer qualify at all, regardless of other factors.
The practical effect: a family that could previously bridge a large affordability gap with Parent PLUS may now hit that new $20,000/yr cap and be pushed toward private loans instead — which don't offer income-driven repayment or forgiveness options. This calculator's federal loan breakdown (in your results) reflects these current limits, not last year's.
How this calculator works
This tool uses IPEDS net price data broken down by family income bracket — the same data colleges report to the federal government — to estimate what a student with your household income actually pays at similar schools. It then factors in expected family contribution, merit aid likelihood based on GPA, and any work-study income to arrive at a remaining loan burden.
We then take that loan amount and calculate the real monthly payment using standard amortization math, and compare it against BLS-reported starting salaries for your intended field of study. The result is an "affordability verdict" based on the debt-to-income ratio — the same metric that financial advisors and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau use.
The 1x rule: the clearest affordability benchmark
Financial advisors broadly agree on one rule for student loan affordability: total student loans should not exceed your expected first-year salary. If you expect to earn $50,000 after graduation, borrowing more than $50,000 will likely strain your budget. Borrowing $75,000–$100,000 on a $50,000 salary is genuinely financially risky — it means loan payments will consume 15–20% of your take-home pay, making it hard to save for a house, retirement, or emergencies.
Our affordability verdict is based on this ratio. A "manageable" verdict means your debt-to-income ratio is under 0.75x — a comfortable margin. "Stretch" means 0.75x–1.5x — doable but requires discipline. "Risky" means over 1.5x — a level that financial research associates with difficulty repaying loans on schedule.