Dive Brief:
- A new partnership will make comparing colleges easier for potentially millions of families.
- ACT Profile and Noodle are now hosting a cost calculator from College Abacus on their sites, allowing parents and students to easily compare the net costs of attending more than 4,500 colleges.
- Schools are required to offer their own net price calculators, but comparing colleges could get time-consuming and repetitive — College Abacus’ tool integrates all of these calculators into one tool, giving families a one-stop shop.
Dive Insight:
ACT already offers a range of tools to help students compare schools, but College Abacus’ calculator will be an easy-to-use addition to the resource list. Same for Noodle, which provides families advice on all levels of education, including early childhood and K-12, along with summer and enrichment programs. Individual colleges’ net price calculators allow students to subtract their own grants and scholarships from the school’s sticker price, a great service, but one that has been ripe for tech innovation since it became required by the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008.