The four questions
Fit — Costs — ROI — Admissions
The order matters. A family arrives asking whether a place is right for their student; budget, return, and admission are how that question gets tested. Each question is held separate, so strength in one cannot hide a problem in another. No single question picks a school — each one can rule one out.
Will you do well there?
Is the school a fit for your academic needs and campus lifestyle preferences.
A good answer contains
- Whether the program is taught at the depth this student needs
- Size, setting, and the campus attributes your family said mattered
- How many students finish at this school, and in how many years
- First-year retention — the closest measurable signal that students want to stay
Where it stops
We report what the school does, not a scenario about what a student might do. Graduation and retention sit underneath the answer as evidence, never as the promise.
Answered by Major Report · Single School · Target
Can you afford it?
The real four-year number for your family, before you apply.
A good answer contains
- Estimated net price for your income band, per year and across four years
- What that requires in borrowing, and the monthly payment it creates
- Which schools cost less than you assumed, expensive ones included
- The gap, named in dollars, wherever there is one
Where it stops
Estimated net price is an estimate, never a statement of what you will pay. Only the institution can state an award. The Financial Aid Report carries requirements and deadlines; it never estimates an amount.
Answered by Budget Report · Financial Aid · Single School · Target
Is it worth the costs?
Early-career pay where you want to work, set against estimated degree costs.
A good answer contains
- A My ROI score from 1 to 10 for each school and up to three majors
- Our estimated net price and the school's own figures, each in years of earnings
- A repayment illustration set against our estimated early-career earnings at graduation
- Missing data, comparison assumptions and source years shown with the evidence
Where it stops
This question needs a program, a place, and a budget, which the deep reports collect. Both reports compare each school with bachelor's schools nationwide that report graduates in the major. Neither predicts an individual salary or an admission outcome.
Answered by My ROI, inside Single School and Target
Can you get in?
Where you stand against what each school actually admits. Answered last, on purpose.
A good answer contains
- Where you sit against what the school has admitted before
- Reach, Target, and Likely as planning labels
- Nothing that reads as a prediction
Where it stops
No admission probability, likelihood score, or chance figure of any kind. Reach, Target, and Likely are planning labels. Admission decisions belong to the institution.
Answered by Admissions Report · Single School · Target
My ROI In Target And Single School Reports
My ROI compares what graduates of this program typically earn in the place you want to live against what the degree costs you — adjusted for the local cost of living, so a salary in one metro is comparable to a salary in another.
For each school and up to three majors, we estimate early-career pay in today's dollars where you want to work: the metro you chose, its state and the U.S. We show two figures, each read as years of earnings. Ours sets our four-year estimated net price against our estimate where you want to work, grown 3% a year to the year you graduate. The school's sets its reported average net price over four years against its graduates' earnings and the national median for the field, grown the same way.
The My ROI score runs from 1 to 10. It compares both figures with the same figures for bachelor's schools nationwide that report graduates in the major; your college-location and size choices do not narrow this comparison. A higher score means a lower cost for each dollar of earnings. Strong value is 8 or higher, Fair value 5 to 7.9, Weak value below 5. It is not a ranking of school quality.
Our estimate draws on BLS OEWS pay for entry-level jobs: for a broad field of study, the jobs its recent graduates hold, from the Census American Community Survey; for a specific major, occupations linked to it through the NCES CIP-to-SOC crosswalk. It also draws on what this school's graduates in the program earn from College Scorecard, and what U.S. graduates in the field earn early in their careers from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Graduate earnings are adjusted for the local cost of living where you want to work with BEA regional price parities, and the estimate is checked against published graduate pay. Occupation pay describes jobs, not graduates. Each report names the values that are missing.
Our estimated net price uses each school's published aid statistics where it reports them; otherwise it counts half of the federal benchmark aid. Prices rise 3% a year over four years. It is an estimate, not an aid offer.
The separate repayment illustration uses projected borrowing at an assumed 7% fixed annual interest over ten years, without fees or in-school interest. It is not a loan offer or a statement of repayment-plan eligibility. It compares the monthly payment with our estimated early-career earnings at graduation for your first major.
Previously delivered reports retain their stored evidence, calculations and assumptions, including Census PSEO graduate earnings, the older cost-recovery illustration and named-school comparisons.
The product line
Seven products, one question each.
The question comes before the features, because the question is what a family recognises. Pricing is one-time; there is no subscription.
| Product | Price | The question it answers | Schools | Delivery |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free College Tracker | $0 | What do we need to do, and when? | 10, entered by you | Excel workbook |
| Target Report | $349 | All four, across a portfolio | 10 — 2 Reach, 6 Target, 2 Likely by default | Interactive + PDF |
| Single School Report | $49 | All four, for one school | 1, named by you | Interactive + PDF |
| Major Report | $99 | Will you do well there? — at the program level | Up to 50 | Interactive + Excel + PDF |
| Budget Report | $99 | Can you afford it? | Up to 50 | Interactive + Excel + PDF |
| Admissions Report | $99 | Can you get in? | Up to 25 Target, 25 Likely | Interactive + Excel + PDF |
| Financial Aid Report | $149 | Can you afford it? — the procedural half | Up to 3, named by you | Interactive + PDF |
How each report works
The method, report by report.
The three scanning reports
Major, Budget, and Admissions are a matched set — same price, same shape, same fifty-school scope. A family uses them to narrow roughly four thousand schools on one question at a time, before paying for deeper analysis.
Each runs in two stages. It qualifies schools on its own criterion, then narrows the result to fifty using the school size and state preferences you set at intake. Both stages shape the list you receive, so both are stated here and on the report itself.
| Report | Qualifies on | Then narrowed by |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Highest reported completions in the exact six-digit CIP program you name — depth is the only defensible proxy for whether a program is real | School size · state |
| Budget | Lowest estimated net price for your income band, among schools inside the annual budget you state | School size · state |
| Admissions | SAT or ACT comparisons with historical enrolled-student score ranges — up to 25 Target and 25 Likely; score-based planning labels, not admission odds | School size · state |
This is a selection, and we say so. We never rank schools by quality, prestige, or reputation, and we never reference an external ranking system. What these reports sort on is your own criterion — your budget, your program, your record.
Budget Reports apply the intake school-size preference and the states the family picked across schools within budget before selecting up to 50 by lowest estimated net price. Unknown enrollment cannot satisfy a size preference. Equal prices use school name, state, then institution ID. Annual and four-year estimates appear in the interactive report, with optional Excel and PDF downloads. Downloads contain the saved selection; browser filters only narrow that list.
Major Reports select up to 50 schools by program completions after size and state preferences. They include optional Excel and PDF downloads of the saved school selection. The Excel workbook includes program outcomes, related occupation wages, missing-data counts, sources, and methodology.
Admissions Reports include an interactive report and optional Excel and PDF downloads of the saved selection. We compare SAT sections or ACT Composite with historical IPEDS ranges for enrolled students who submitted scores. School-size and state preferences apply before selecting up to 25 Target and 25 Likely schools. When fewer qualify, we disclose the shortfall instead of moving schools between bands. GPA alone cannot support these comparisons because the current source has no comparable school-level GPA ranges. The workbook includes admission rates, score comparisons, coverage counts, sources, and the selection method. Page filters do not change either download.
Single School Report
All four questions answered for one school you name: academic and campus fit, affordability, cost and regional earnings evidence, and admissions context. The analysis assesses only that school. It does not select a portfolio or compare against another institution. Interactive report and PDF are included, with no customer revisions.
Financial Aid Report
What a family has to do, and by when, to be considered for aid at up to three named schools. Institutional, federal, and state requirements — forms, deadlines, eligibility, and renewal conditions — each carrying the date it was checked. This is retrieval, not modeling: it documents what is required and never estimates an award.
Target Report
The full analysis across a portfolio. We start from your student’s profile and your family’s priorities, evaluate each school against all four questions held separate, and return ten schools — two reach, six target, two likely by default — with up to three you name included among them. Every school carries a rationale, the evidence behind it, and what you still need to verify.
Free College Tracker
Not a report and not an analysis. A predefined five-stage plan with 47 tasks and a ten-school planning matrix, starting at your student’s current grade. It makes no recommendations and pulls no external data — it is the workbook the paid reports are designed to drop into.
Data sources
Where the numbers come from.
Sources are the receipt, not the pitch. Our analysis is what we are selling; published data is what makes it checkable. Every report names its sources and the date they were pulled.
The current production dataset is built on federal releases — institutional characteristics, admissions, enrollment, pricing, completions, graduation and retention from IPEDS; cost and outcome measures from College Scorecard; occupation wage estimates from BLS OEWS, linked to fields of study through the NCES CIP-to-SOC crosswalk. Every free source we point families at is listed on Public Resources.
Under ConstructionWe are migrating to Peterson’s as the primary source. Source references on this page describe the current production dataset and will change when that migration lands.
Limits
A decision aid—not a prediction.
Published data is historical, may lag current college conditions, and can be missing for a school or program. Estimated net price is not a family-specific aid quote, admission estimates are not guarantees, and wage data cannot predict an individual graduate’s outcome.
We show what is missing instead of filling it in. You remain the decision-maker. The full scope of each product — what it does and does not include — is set out in the Terms of Service.