College cost comparison tool
The scholarship number is not the cost. This tool compares up to five schools on what your family would actually pay — and projects it across four years.
The smaller scholarship costs that family $40,400 less. That gap is invisible if you compare percentages. It's obvious the moment you compare net cost — which is all this tool does.
Four numbers per school
The arithmetic is easy. Finding the right numbers is the part that trips families up — so here's exactly where each one lives.
Not tuition. Cost of attendance is tuition plus room and board, books, fees, and estimated travel and personal expenses. Schools are required to publish it.
Where to find itSearch "[school name] cost of attendance" — it's on every financial aid site. Use the out-of-state figure if you're out of state.
The dollar amount, not the percentage. If a coach quotes you a percentage, multiply it by cost of attendance yourself — or better, ask for the dollar figure and get it in writing.
Where to find itThe coach, then the athletics financial aid agreement. Before an offer exists, leave it at zero and model the school without it.
Institutional grants based on GPA, class rank, test scores, or course rigor. At D3 and many D2 schools this is larger than anything athletics offers — and it doesn't depend on playing time.
Where to find itThe school's net price calculator, which every college is required by federal law to publish. Run it before you visit.
Grants determined by family finances through the FAFSA. Grants only — money that is given, not lent.
Where to find itThe net price calculator estimates it. After you apply, the official financial aid award letter states it exactly.
They appear on award letters alongside grants and they look like aid. They aren't. A loan is repaid with interest; work-study trades your athlete's time for money they'd have to earn anyway. Counting either one makes a school look thousands of dollars cheaper than it is — and it's the most common way families end up committing to a school they can't actually afford.
If it has to be paid back or worked for, leave it out.
What the number does and doesn't tell you
Everything before an official financial aid award letter is projection. Net price calculators are good, but they're modelling your family, not deciding on it. Re-run this once real letters are in hand.
The projection raises cost of attendance each year but holds your aid steady, because that's usually what happens — merit awards rarely rise with tuition, and athletic aid renews at the same dollar figure. It's the conservative number, which is the one worth planning against.
Net cost is one factor among several — athletic fit, academic program, culture, playing time, distance from home. The point isn't to pick the cheapest school. It's to know the real price of each one before the other factors get weighed.
Athletic aid at D1 and D2 is a one-year award renewed annually. Since August 2024 all D1 schools must guarantee it can't be cut for athletic reasons — but other conditions still apply, and they vary. Get them in writing before you sign.
The full picture — how equivalency scholarships work by division, how merit aid stacks, and what the FAFSA produces — is on Understanding Scholarships & Financial Aid.
The College Cost Comparison Tool is included with every AthletesGoing2College Recruiting Blueprint membership.
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