When helping your child to plan for the costs associated with college, there is a lot to factor in, and estimating the cost of tuition and living expenses after contributions from family, federal aid, and scholarships isn’t always easy to calculate. Get started with the Net Price Calculator, a do-it-yourself tuition and financial aid estimate that can help you and your child get an idea of what financial support will be needed for them to jump-start their dream.

By answering a series of questions about your child, their education history, and their finances, the Net Price Calculator will assist you in finding out what scholarships and benefits your child may be eligible for; it also helps identify what they may qualify for under federal aid, including Pell Grants and Stafford Loans. The final amount provided by the calculator will determine what you might expect to need to borrow through a Direct Plus Loan or a private loan.

“You're going to get more detail once you complete the FAFSA and once you have those initial conversations with the enrollment team. But the Net Price Calculator is going to give you a really good picture if you want to do that before you go into that conversation, so you have an idea of what it's going to look like,” shares Full Sail Enrollment Representative Meghan Furrie.

Getting a head start with the Net Price Calculator can help you get a clear picture of questions you may want to ask when you have a conversation with the Enrollment team at Full Sail and help you prepare for your next steps with financial aid.

“If you have the time to do it prior, definitely sit down and do that. Let's say you're a student or you're a parent and maybe you don't have the other person with you that you need to complete the FAFSA, but you want an idea of what you're going to qualify for, this is a little bit more lenient to just putting in whatever information you have on hand versus the FAFSA, which is a federal document.”