What's new
What a college costs at your income, not just on average. Each college's Cost page now opens with three facts: the full price, how far up the income scale need-based aid reaches, and whether the college gives merit aid to students without financial need. Under them is a chart of the price at every family income from $0 to $400K, and a slider that reads off the price at yours. Nothing you enter is saved.
The colleges' own promises. Many colleges publish income lines, such as "families under $200,000 pay no tuition". The site now has these for 54 colleges, each linked to the college's page. They're marked on the chart and listed on Compare. A public college's promise to its own state's residents is labeled "in-state".
Merit aid. The Cost page and Compare now say whether a college gives merit aid. The answer comes from the college's own report where it has one (how many students without need got merit aid, and the average award). Otherwise it's the federal share of students who got a grant without federal aid, labeled as an approximation. Colleges with need-based aid only say so.
Compare and Explore. Compare has new rows for where need-based aid ends, merit, and published promises, and an income slider that shows each college's price at the income you pick. Explore can filter to colleges that offer merit aid and sort by the price at an income. Cards and rows then show that price.
Above $110K is an estimate, and it's not on the live site yet. Federal figures stop at $110K. Above that, the site estimates the price and the income where need-based aid ends, always as a range marked "estimate". Before those estimates go live, we're checking them against 25 colleges' own net price calculators. Until then the live site shows the published figures to $110K and points you to the college's calculator for higher incomes. For your family's real number, the college's calculator is always the place to go.
Behind the scenes
Up to $110K the chart shows the federal net price for each income band. Above that, the estimate depends on the college. At a college with a published free-tuition line, it starts from that promise. Elsewhere, it's fitted so it reproduces the college's published average price for families over $110K. Colleges whose published figures don't fit a need-based pattern, usually because nearly everyone gets a discount, get no estimate. So do colleges that don't meet full need.