Many colleges are confusing or discouraging low-income students with overly complicated net price calculators, said a report issued last week by the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation. The report praised simple tools that perform some or all of the functions of net price calculators, which federal law requires colleges to provide as a means for prospective students to figure out their aid eligibility.
But the report noted that 30-plus elite colleges block College Abacus, one simple tool, instead insisting that students instead use the colleges' own aid calculators. And one tool that the report did praise was a calculator used at Wellesley College that turns out to have much in common with College Abacus and that is now being used by other colleges as well. The issue raised by the report is, in effect, would simple be best for providing aid information to the students at the lowest income levels?
Many net price calculators aim for precision, and they tell prospective students to gather their parents' tax records, information on family income and assets, and more. For middle-class families (and upper-class families who qualify for aid at plenty of colleges), this may make sense.
But aid experts have long said that for low-income, first-generation students, these kinds of questions can be intimidating -- and scare people off.
Read more at Inside Higher Ed: https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2017/08/21/tools-are-less-detailed-most-colleges-aid-calculators-are-gathering