• About
  • Editorial Board
  • Advertise
  • Join Us
  • Archives
The Wellesley News -
  • News and Features
    • Students Remember the Legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsberg
      Students Remember the Legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsberg
    • First-Year Students Reflect on Their Expectations for College, One Semester In
      First-Year Students Reflect on Their Expectations for College, One Semester In
    • “We Want to Fundamentally Change the Culture,” International Student Union says
      “We Want to Fundamentally Change the Culture,” International Student Union says
    • News
      • News in Brief
      • Nation & World
      • President’s Corner
      • Senate Report
    • Features
      • Alumnae Spotlight
      • Eye on Science
      • Faculty Focus
      • LGBTQIA+ Column
  • Opinions
    • Wellesley, why can’t you meet our dietary needs?
      Wellesley, why can’t you meet our dietary needs?
    • The block system is a joke
      The block system is a joke
    • Spineless nonpartisanship: how the Girl Scouts convinced me they no longer care about girls
      Spineless nonpartisanship: how the Girl Scouts convinced me they no longer care about girls
    • Staff Editorial
    • Letters to the Editor
    • The Elephant in the Room
  • Arts
    • Harry Styles de-typifies masculinity in Vogue’s December Issue, but is this enough? (spoiler: it’s not)
      Harry Styles de-typifies masculinity in Vogue’s December Issue, but is this enough? (spoiler: it’s not)
    • Music Performance Courses Adapt to an Altered Semester
      Music Performance Courses Adapt to an Altered Semester
    • Ben Wheatley’s adaptation of “Rebecca” fails to deliver compared to its classic counterpart
      Ben Wheatley’s adaptation of “Rebecca” fails to deliver compared to its classic counterpart
    • Arts In The News
    • Reviews
    • Music Peek
  • Health and Wellness
    • No image
      Athletic impacts of Covid-19
    • No image
      A new kind of PE
    • No image
      Maintaining wellness as the cold sets in
    • Athlete of the Week
    • Boston Sports Update
    • The Vegan Digest
    • The SHE Corner
  • Miscellanea
    • No image
      Remote students experience existential crises; change class years in email signatures
    • President’s Column: The Butterfly Effect
      President’s Column: The Butterfly Effect
    • Your next on-campus romance isn’t going to work out
      Your next on-campus romance isn’t going to work out
    • The Artichoke
    • The Dose
    • The Olive Branch
    • Multimedia
      • Galleries
      • Infographics
      • Videos
By Nasreen Al-Qadi News, News and FeaturesOctober 23, 2014

College releases updated My inTuition financial aid calculator

Soojin Jeong '17, Photography Editor

Online tool now calculates students’ estimated loan burden

Wellesley College has recently made improvements to its online My inTuition calculator. The updated financial aid calculator was released last Monday, Oct. 14 and builds upon the original by adding a new system that estimates the size of loans inside a student’s financial aid package. When the calculator was first released last year, it only calculated the amount students and their families would be expected to pay after financial aid.

Economics professor Phillip Levine created the statistical algorithm behind the system and hopes the improved calculator will alleviate some of the concerns incoming students have when it comes to college financing. Most prospective students are only aware of a college’s sticker price of over $60,000, which could cause these students to shy away from Wellesley. Wellesley is working toward reassuring incoming students that the price depends entirely on each student’s need by using tools such as My inTuition.

“Before a tool like this, it was extremely difficult to have a sense of how much less it would be,” Levine said. “If the only number that they know is $60,000, you just closed the door for a lot of people.”

Loan burden is a common topic of discussion as of late, as the average student debt in Massachusetts is over $28,000. Wellesley, however, has an average student debt of just over $14,000. This is particularly low compared to other colleges. For example, Mount Holyoke has an average student debt of close to $23,000.

Overall, American loan borrowers have accumulated almost $1.2 trillion in outstanding federal student debt. With the new loan estimator, Wellesley hopes to reassure students that money will not be a huge problem.

“I think that the great innovation of the revision is to indicate to people that there might be loan burden, but it’s not enormous. We want to dispel that myth for them,” Levine said.

However, students have mixed feelings about the updated tool. Many said that the loan estimates were not accurate enough.

“I did not find it very useful. They didn’t ask for enough specific information, so you were given a range between $2,000 and $11,000 . It was just a huge difference between the numbers,” Carolyn Rogan ’18 said.

On the other hand, some prospective students who have also noticed the new loan estimator found the tool useful.

“I found it very helpful in gaining an idea of how much my family would need to spend. Wellesley wasn’t the cheapest, but it wasn’t the most expensive either,” prospective student Christine Forbes said.

The idea first began five years ago when Levine performed a funded study on the College’s financial aid system at the time. Based on his research, he realized the need for an easier method for financial aid estimation. However, the project was put on hold after the financial crisis struck and the College was facing more pressing issues. When the project picked up again, it only took a couple of months for Levine to complete the mathematical and technical work.

Despite the update, the calculator still has limitations. My inTuition is geared toward students who have simple financial situations, but does not calculate more complex situations very well. For more unique situations, students are redirected to the College Board’s Net Price Calculator to provide more detailed information.

“[For] the majority of people who have straightforward finances, our calculator is going to work really well. It’s when you start to deviate from that a little bit that it starts to skew the results a little,” Levine said.

The calculator has received a positive response from students, according to the statistics Levine has collected. It takes an average of three minutes to answer the six questions in the calculator and has a completion rate of 80 percent. In comparison, the College Board’s Net Price Calculator has a completion rate of 30 percent. Since the college application season is cyclical, the popularity of the tool also fluctuates. This month, which is peak season,  the tool has gotten close to one thousand hits. It receives around half those hits most other seasons. Overall, over 10,000 people have used the tool for estimates.

Levine is currently conducting research to look at the effect the calculator has on attracting students. Results are expected to be public within the next couple of months.

The updated tool took a year to develop because all the members of the team who worked on this project over the past years volunteered their time and were not paid.

In terms of expanding the calculator to other platforms such as the iPhone, Levine is uncertain. However, he is happy with what the tool has accomplished so far.

“It’s been a big deal and the college has dedicated a tremendous amount of resources and time to this project,” Levine said.

Levine hopes that the tool will eventually be expanded to colleges other than Wellesley, so more people can benefit from the online calculator.

Photo by Soojin Jeong ’17, Photography Editor

Share on

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • Google +
  • LinkedIn
  • Email
Previous article10/22
Next article10/22

You may also like

Students Remember the Legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsberg

First-Year Students Reflect on Their Expectations for College, One Semester In

“We Want to Fundamentally Change the Culture,” International Student Union says

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Email Newsletter

Sign up to receive our weekly digest in your inbox

* indicates required

Top Articles

  • Harry Styles de-typifies masculinity in Vogue’s December Iss...
  • Students Remember the Legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsberg

Recent Tweets

Tweets by @Wellesley_News

The independent student newspaper of Wellesley College since 1901.

Sign up to receive our weekly digest in your inbox

* indicates required

  • About
  • Editorial Board
  • Advertise
  • Join Us
  • Archives
COPYRIGHT © 2021 THE WELLESLEY NEWS
Back to top