It is just my personal opinion, but I’m not sure money is always the driving force in the “help me decide” threads. Often they want a comparison of the school culture, safety, academic support, how the different colleges/majors compare at the different schools, opportunities available while in college as well as potential for internships/jobs.
If you were to develop a template, I would start with
- State of residence or international. This helps determine in-state vs OOS costs.
- Major student was accepted into at each college
- Career interests or thoughts about what they might want to do after college (if known)
- Tuition at each campus vs total COA at each campus
- Have you visited any of the campuses?
I’m sure there is a lot more that can be added in a template such as whether you are aware of how much you can take out in student loans and where you expect to get the rest of the money, but I’ll leave the wording of those items to others. 