Boston College and 15 other leading universities announced today that they will implement MyinTuition, an online tool that quickly and easily provides accurate college cost estimates for prospective students.
Students and families will now be able to estimate costs to attend BC as well as Babson College, Brown University, Colby College, Davidson College, Duke University, Grinnell College, Hamilton College, Johns Hopkins University, Middlebury College, Northwestern University, Skidmore College, Smith College, St. Olaf College, University of Rochester, and Yale University.
(Read about the announcement in the Washington Post and New York Times.)
MyinTuition requires no tax forms, and asks users to provide six basic and readily known financial characteristics. It takes the average user just three minutes to complete. Between April 2017 and January 2018 alone, more than 150,000 individuals used the tool to generate college cost estimates.
In total, 31 academically elite colleges have implemented MyinTuition, which was created in 2013 by Wellesley College economists Phillip Levine, Katharine Coman and A. Barton Hepburn. The 16 new users join existing partner schools Amherst College, Bowdoin College, Carleton College, Colorado College, Columbia University, Dartmouth College, Mount Holyoke College, Pomona College, Rice University, University of Virginia, Vassar College, Washington and Lee University, Wellesley College, Wesleyan University and Williams College.
“MyinTuition provides low- and middle-income high school students and their families a quick estimator of the affordability of a Boston College education,” said Bernie Pekala, director of student financial strategies at Boston College. “BC is strongly committed to access and affordability, as evidenced by the fact that we remain one of only 19 private universities that are need-blind and meet the full demonstrated need of all students. That means that we do not consider a family’s ability to pay for college in the admission process, while also committing to meet the full demonstrated institutional financial need of our undergraduate students.”
Levine says that while the tool helps clarify college costs for all prospective students, it is critical in providing guidance to high-performing students from lower-income families. “MyinTuition helps to demonstrate that a top college is still accessible––and may even be the most affordable option—by providing an accurate estimate of college cost after factoring in financial aid, and separately reporting scholarships along with loan and work study expectations.”
—University Communications