Compare your offers
Which acceptance is actually cheapest over four years? Add each school and its scholarship, and we rank them by true out-of-pocket total, not freshman-year sticker.
Add up to 4 schools · 0/4 added
Compare the true four-year cost of your acceptance offers side by side, each with its own scholarship.
Why the bigger scholarship often loses
Two offers can look a mile apart in April and finish within a few hundred dollars of each other by graduation. The reason is that most merit scholarships are a flat dollar amount that never changes, while tuition compounds every year. A $20,000 award against a $50,000 bill covers 40% as a freshman. If that school raises tuition 4% a year, the same award covers about 35% by senior year, and the gap comes out of your pocket.
That is why a percentage-of-tuition scholarship is worth more than a flat award of the same starting value. A half-tuition award keeps pace with every increase; a flat award quietly shrinks against it. Comparing freshman-year net price hides this entirely, which is exactly how two schools with very different growth rates end up looking equivalent.
What this tool compares
Add up to four schools and enter the aid each one offered. For every school we take its published tuition and fees, project them forward at that school's own historical growth rate from federal IPEDS data, subtract your aid the way the award is actually structured, and total all four years. Schools are ranked by that total, not by sticker price and not by first-year cost.
Every figure is an estimate built from published rates, not a quote or a financial aid determination. Room and board is projected separately, since it usually grows at its own rate and most scholarships never touch it.