<p>I ran the NPC on the University of Alabama’s own site, using the same information as above, except that UA does not request all of the same items that College Abacus requested in my query for multiple colleges. For example, the UA NPC does not request information related to home equity. I specified that the parents had $124K in financial assets.</p>
<p>The resulting estimate from the NPC was exactly the same as above: $18,104.
Costs include:
$23950 tuition
$800 course fees
$600 dining dollars
$8800 residence hall
$3156 meal plan
$300 parking decal
$1200 books and supplies
$1374 transportation
$1874 miscellaneous</p>
<h2>-$23950 Presidential Scholarship</h2>
<p>$18,104 net
This appears to be a calculation for 2013-14; these figures may be higher than what some parents paid in previous years; your costs may be higher still in future years.</p>
<p>Of course, one can make assumptions about cost-saving opportunities (cheaper meal plan, etc.)
For purposes of early, apples-to-apples comparison shopping, my inclination would be to stick to the colleges’ own estimates (rather than trying to apply inside knowledge to deflate some schools’ prices but not others.) Although I would agree that for many colleges (including many expensive private colleges), after the first year especially, one might be able to do much better than ~$12K/year+ for room and board.</p>