College Cost Comparison Spreadsheet, Financial Aid Calculator, Net Price, Student Loans (Excel/Google Sheets)

Three colleges send three letters, each with a big number on it, and none of the three numbers means the same thing.

One college quotes tuition only. Another quotes everything, including a guess at your travel home. And nearly all of them add grants you keep to loans you have to repay, print the total, and call it your aid package.

So the most generous-looking offer is regularly the most expensive one, and families find that out four years later.

This spreadsheet takes the letters apart and puts back two honest numbers: what this year really costs you, and what the whole degree really costs you - with tuition rising every year and the grant, as usual, not moving at all.

* WHAT IT WORKS OUT

cost of attendance = tuition and fees + housing + food + books + travel + personal
money you keep = college grants + Pell + state grants + outside scholarships
NET PRICE = cost of attendance - money you keep
the gap = net price - what the family can pay that year
still short = the gap - every loan the college offered

year n cost = cost of attendance x (1 + your tuition rise) ^ (n - 1)
year n grant = money you keep x (1 + your grant growth) ^ (n - 1)
total to borrow = the remaining years added up, minus what the family can pay
monthly payment = the standard repayment formula, at your rate over your term

* GRANTS AND LOANS ARE NEVER ADDED TOGETHER

That single habit is why families choose the wrong college on price. Everywhere this file says "money you keep", loans are excluded - and there is a column that tells you what share of each package is really debt.

Work-study gets its own column too, and is never subtracted from a price. It is a part-time job with a shift rota, not a discount, and a student who does not work it does not get it.

* THE ONE THAT CATCHES PEOPLE

A grant fixed in dollars covers a great deal of the first year's bill and noticeably less of the fourth year's. Nobody has to change the offer for that to happen, and no letter tells you it will. The file shows the first year and the final year side by side, and the difference between them.

Ask each college, in writing, whether its own award is a fixed number of dollars or a fixed share of tuition. That question is worth more than any other you can ask them, and this is the sheet that makes you ask it.

* WHAT IS ON EACH TAB

START HERE - what the file answers, what to have in front of you, and exactly how the maths is done, so you can check it.
Setup - ten answers: the years still to pay for, your tuition rise, your grant growth, the federal loan rate and term, dependent or independent, and what the family can really pay.
Your Colleges - five colleges, six cost components each, added into a real cost of attendance, with the sticker price for the whole degree at today's prices and with prices rising.
Aid Offers - each letter line by line. College grants, Pell, state grants and outside scholarships on the left; subsidised, unsubsidised and Parent PLUS loans on the right; work-study on its own.
Real Net Price - net price for one year, the gap after what the family can pay, the loans offered, and whatever would still be missing after all of them. Plus where every dollar would have to come from.
Four-Year Projection - every remaining year with costs rising and grants flat, per year and in total, and what the last year costs against the first.
Borrowing & Repayment - the total to borrow, the monthly payment, the total repaid and the total interest, a check against the federal borrowing limits, and the payment as a share of an expected starting salary.
Scholarships & Deadlines - thirty applications with amounts, deadline countdowns, status, outcome and what you actually won. Useful from October, months before any offer arrives.
Dashboard - the cheapest college over the whole degree, the least borrowing, the biggest gift aid and the cheapest first year, all four named, so you can see immediately where they disagree.
Decision & Deadlines - FAFSA, CSS Profile, the earliest aid deadline and 1 May, how to appeal an offer and what appeals usually work, and eight things to confirm before you accept.
Reference Figures - the published numbers with the year each belongs to and where it came from: Pell, the loan rates, every borrowing limit and the dates.

* THE PUBLISHED FIGURES BUILT IN

Maximum Federal Pell Grant for 2026-27: 7,395, with a minimum of 740.
Direct Subsidized and Unsubsidized loans for undergraduates, first paid out between 1 July 2026 and 30 June 2027: 6.52 per cent. Graduate unsubsidised: 8.07. Direct PLUS: 9.07.
Annual limits for a dependent undergraduate: 5,500 in the first year, 6,500 in the second, 7,500 after that.
Lifetime limits: 31,000 for a dependent undergraduate, 57,500 for an independent one.
Parent PLUS, for loans made from 1 July 2026: 20,000 per student per year, and 65,000 per student in total.
The 2027-28 FAFSA opens by 1 October 2026 and uses your 2025 tax return.

Every one of those is on the Reference Figures tab with its source. The loan rate on the Setup tab is a cell you can type over, because the rate for loans disbursed from 1 July 2027 is not set until June 2027. Nothing in this file is a prediction.

* HOW IT WORKS

Open it in Excel, or upload it to Google Drive and open it with Google Sheets. Type in each college's published cost of attendance - every college in the United States has to publish one - then copy each offer letter in, line by line.

It works perfectly well before any offer arrives: fill in the costs, use the scholarship tracker from October, and add the aid columns in the spring.

No account to make, no subscription, no app for anyone to download. Nothing you type leaves your computer.

* WHAT YOU GET

One .xlsx file with all eleven tabs, instantly downloadable after purchase. Works in Microsoft Excel 2007 or newer, and in Google Sheets with a free Google account. Nothing physical is shipped.

* PLEASE READ

This is a personal decision-making tool, not financial advice, tax advice or legal advice, and not a substitute for a college's financial aid office, a school counsellor or a licensed adviser. It contains no college's own prices and it does not calculate a Student Aid Index or anyone's eligibility for anything - only the FAFSA and the colleges can do that. Every figure it produces is arithmetic on numbers you type in yourself. An official offer letter always overrides anything shown here, aid can change from year to year, and the rules change. Confirm anything that matters with the college's financial aid office and with studentaid.gov before you accept an offer or sign for a loan.

Because this is an instant digital download, it cannot be returned. If something does not work, message me and I will fix it.

P.S. - Also grab our FREE Mini Budget Tracker spreadsheet: https://neattrailco.com

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