Why net price matters more than tuition

Published tuition is what colleges advertise; net price is what the typical student actually pays after federal, state and institutional grants. The gap is often enormous - private colleges with $60,000 sticker prices can have $20,000 net prices for median-income families, while some public flagships cost more in practice than their reputation suggests. Every college profile in this database leads with net price for that reason.

Where the data comes from

All figures come from the College Scorecard maintained by the U.S. Department of Education: institution-level data on admissions, costs, completion, and earnings of former students collected through the federal tax-records system. We refresh our snapshot regularly and add plain-language interpretation - what each number means for your application and budget - plus quick comparisons with similar colleges.

Tools that use this data

Run a full payback simulation in the Degree ROI Simulator, filter schools by your budget in the College Finder, or estimate your admission odds in the Admission Chances tool.