Your family can run the Net Price Calculator (NPC) on a school’s website to get an idea of how much financial aid you might receive and whether or not the Expected Family Contribution (EFC) is something they are willing and able to pay. The NPCs may not be updated yet for the 2024-2025 school year (and there have been some changes, the most significant of which relates to the impact that having more than one student in college at the same time). So the NPC may not be as accurate as if you waited a couple of months to run it. But it will give you and your family a pretty good idea as to what kind of financial aid you might receive and whether it’s even worth considering. Additionally, if the NPC asks for academic info like your GPA and test scores, it will often give an estimate as to the minimum amount of merit aid that you might expect to receive.