Sticker Price vs Net Price: What College Actually Costs
The number colleges advertise is not the number most students pay. Here is the difference, and why comparing sticker prices tells you almost nothing.
By College Path HubPublished Last reviewed
Most families start by looking at a college's published price, deciding it is impossible, and crossing it off. That is the single most expensive mistake in the whole process, because the published price is not what most students pay.
The two numbers
Published cost, often called sticker price, is tuition, fees, housing, food and books for one academic year before any aid. It is the figure colleges advertise and the one that frightens people off applying.
Average net price is what students receiving federal aid actually paid, on average, after grants and scholarships were subtracted. It is almost always lower, and frequently dramatically lower.
The gap between them is grant aid, and it varies enormously between colleges.
Why comparing sticker prices is misleading
A college charging $60,000 that awards you $40,000 in grants costs you $20,000. A college charging $30,000 that awards you nothing costs you $30,000. The expensive-looking college is the cheaper one.
This happens constantly, because the colleges with the highest published prices are often the ones with the largest endowments and therefore the most grant aid to give away. Ruling them out on price alone can mean ruling out the affordable options.
What a net price does not tell you
Average net price is an average across students with very different family finances. Yours will differ, possibly by a lot. A student from a low-income household may pay far less than the average; one from a high-income household will usually pay close to the full published price.
It also covers only students who received federal aid, so it says nothing about what students who did not apply for aid paid.
Getting your own number
Every college is legally required to publish a net price calculator that estimates your cost from your family's actual finances. Those are linked from each college profile on this site where one is published, and they will be far closer to reality than any average.
Filing the FAFSA is what determines federal aid eligibility, and many colleges will not award their own institutional aid without it.
What to do with this
When you compare colleges, compare net prices, not sticker prices. Then work out what gap is left after grants and what your family can contribute, because the gap is what decides whether a college is affordable.
- Compare colleges side by side on net price, graduation rate and debt
- Work out your real cost, including what borrowing the gap would cost each month
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