New Partnerships Add Visibility for College Costs
An online tool that aggregates information about
college costs
is now available at ACT
Profile and Noodle.
College
Abacus, a free tool that allows students and their
parents to compare the projected cost of higher education across
multiple institutions,
is operated by the ECMC Innovation Lab, an incubator for new products
designed
to empower students to succeed in higher education.
ACT, a nonprofit that administers the ACT
Test for college
entry, and Noodle, a Web site that provides information to students and
parents
about college choices, will now offer an entry point to College Abacus'
widget,
or app, on their sites, making the information on the real cost of an
education at 4,500 colleges and universities in the United States more readily
available.
Students and parents can go to College Abacus, enter
information about their college choices and find comparative information
on
multiple institutions after the value of scholarships and grants is
factored
in.
Since 2011, all colleges that accept federal funding
have been
required to supply net price calculators on their sites to help
students and
colleges find the bottom-line cost of an education at the institution.
Since
2013, College Abacus has offered the aggregated information that
previously was
only available from each college.
"In this era of rising tuition costs and growing
student loan
debt, families deserve access to the best possible tools and information
for
understanding their options," said Abigail Seldin, co-founder of College
Abacus
and ECMC Group vice president. "These new partnerships will broaden the
reach
of College Abacus, giving us a wider platform for helping more families
identify
colleges within their budgets."
About the Author
Michael Hart is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer and the former executive editor of THE Journal.