Colleges Invest in Tuition Cost Calculator to Help Students Afford an Education

Williams College and the University of Virginia recently implemented My inTuition, a calculation tool that helps prospective students determine how much their college education will cost.

My inTuition, which was developed by Wellesley College, asks six basic financial questions before providing a personalized cost estimation of the education a student would receive at each of these schools. The calculator takes around three minutes to compute and display the estimate paid by the family, work-study, loans, and grants given by the colleges.

According to a statement by Wellesley College, the goal of My inTuition is to “increase transparency around college costs.”

“All families benefit from having an earlier understanding of cost in the college selection process, but this tool can be particularly helpful to students from low and middle-income families who may have a misconception that we, and many other elite colleges, are not affordable,” said Joy St. John, Wellesley’s Dean of Admission and Financial Aid, in a previous statement. “With Williams’ and U.Va.’s adoption of the tool, we hope that more students and families will realize that top colleges are within reach for any qualified student, regardless of their financial situation.”

Since its launch in 2013, My inTuition has provided more than 42,000 estimates to prospective students and their families – more than eight times the amount of estimates given by the Net Price Calculator.

“While not a replacement for the Net Price Calculator, the My inTuition college cost estimator is a speedy tool that prospective students can use to estimate quickly the affordability of the college or university in which they are interested,” said University of Virginia President Teresa A. Sullivan in a previous statement. “It demonstrates true estimated cost, helping to avoid the possibility of losing prospective students due to misperceptions about cost.”

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