With the growing concern that prospective students need better insight into their affordability of an education, 100 more colleges and other post-secondary schools are switching from inaccurate, barebones online calculators to accurate calculator technologies and services offered by market leader Student Aid Services, Inc. So far 678 campuses have selected the company’s advanced calculators to highlight value and affordability.
/EINPresswire.com/ INDIANAPOLIS, IN – February 2, 2012 – With the growing concern that prospective students need better insight into their affordability of an education, more colleges and other post-secondary schools are switching from inaccurate, barebones online calculators to accurate calculator technologies and services offered by market leader Student Aid Services, Inc.
Since the federal calculator mandate’s October deadline, 100 more campuses have chosen Student Aid Services’ advanced calculator technology to reliably generate accurate, detailed aid and cost estimates in minutes. Oklahoma State University of Stillwater, OK; Ave Maria University of Ave Maria, FL; Lindenwood University of St. Charles, MO; Camelot College of Baton Rouge, LA; and Infotech Career College of Bellflower, CA are among those recently shifting to the company’s custom technologies. So far, 678 campuses have selected Student Aid Services’ calculators to help families plan how to pay for an education.
“We have a personalized, hands-on approach with our prospective students and their families that facilitates building financial aid strategies conducive for each family,” said Joe Parisi, dean of day admissions for Lindenwood University. “When we populated the federal template, we found it did not offer the level of customization for us to tell Lindenwood’s unique story. When we compared our net price calculator results to those from a more expensive institution, the results incorrectly showed us as being more expensive. The Student Aid Services’ team and technology worked with our team to develop a customized and user friendly calculator that supports our overall institutional goals.”
Student Aid Services’ predictive calculator technology is based on sophisticated algorithms that use an institution’s current or future aid-award formulas to ensure accuracy. The company customizes net price calculators with features such as military aid calculations, affordability analysis, one-click Spanish, log-in and save, and personalized printed results.
“Many post-secondary institutions at first chose very simplistic calculators that met the bare minimum of the compliance standards,” said Jeff Whorley, president of Student Aid Services. “Now, we are talking with schools every day that are realizing an unreliable and inaccurate net price calculator on their websites doesn’t serve prospective students very well and, in turn, doesn’t serve the institution’s enrollment efforts.”
Whorley also noted that the company offers a wide range of other college cost estimation technologies and related services that are being implemented by dozens of institutions.
The company conducted two tests of nearly 145,000 real students’ financial profiles that demonstrated the federal template calculator produces inaccurate aid eligibility and net prices 54% of the time. Often the federal template calculator shows an estimated net price that is higher than the actual cost for a particular student attending the institution. The federal template is error prone because it is a ‘reflective’ net price calculator based on two-year-old financial aid averages, not current data.
“Our experience with schools switching to better technology in the last 90 days indicates that an increasing number of students and families are going to have access to truly useful calculators this year,” Whorley added. “It’s especially encouraging that post-secondary institutions of all types and sizes are continuing to decide that reliable calculators are best for their prospective students.”
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(C) Student Aid Services, Inc., 2012. All Rights Reserved. Student Aid Services and ThinkAhead are trademarks of Student Aid Services, Inc., in the United States, other countries, or both. Other company, product or service names may be trademarks or service marks of others.
About Student Aid Services, Inc.
Student Aid Services, Inc. is the nation’s leading provider of college-cost estimation services and technologies that help students and families understand how to plan and pay for college. Student Aid Services’ predictive technology offers prospective and current students accurate need, merit and military aid eligibility; net price; and out-of-pocket cost estimates that are reliable for education planning. Student Aid Services’ advanced technology can use modified federal and institutional need analysis, replicate term and non-term aid-packaging policies, accommodate sophisticated institutional packaging and neighboring states’ portable aid programs, and support multiple cost of attendance to provide highly personalized cost estimates. Student Aid Services is a private company with offices in Indianapolis, IN and Sacramento, CA. http://www.studentaidservices.com
Media Contact:
Mary Fallon
Student Aid Services
916-629-7050
http://www.studentaidservices.com
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