For independent educational consultants

    Free college research tools for independent educational consultants

    Net price, Pell and loan estimates, similar colleges, admission chances and scholarships on federal data, free for your clients with no ads and no sign-in. Copy any tool with a one-line description for client emails and portals.

    Tools to shareUse with students

    or ask about it inChatGPTClaude

    Tools to share

    Each button copies the tool's name, what it answers and its full address, ready for a newsletter, Google Classroom post, LMS page or email to families. The cost, Pell and loan tools can also run on your own school page.

    • College cost estimator

      www.collegesref.com/tools/cost-estimator

      Compare a college's sticker price with what aided students actually pay, plus a four-year total and graduate earnings.

      Embed: College cost estimator

      Free for school, counseling and library pages. The working tool runs inside the frame with its source and a CollegesRef credit, and updates when the data does.

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    • Pell Grant estimator

      www.collegesref.com/tools/pell-grant-estimator

      Enter the Student Aid Index from the FAFSA to estimate the federal Pell Grant for the award year.

      Embed: Pell Grant estimator

      Free for school, counseling and library pages. The working tool runs inside the frame with its source and a CollegesRef credit, and updates when the data does.

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    • Federal student loan limits

      www.collegesref.com/tools/student-loan-limits

      How much a student can borrow in federal Direct Loans each year and in total, and the gap to a college's net price.

      Embed: Federal student loan limits

      Free for school, counseling and library pages. The working tool runs inside the frame with its source and a CollegesRef credit, and updates when the data does.

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      Preview the embed

    • Colleges like one you know

      www.collegesref.com/use-collegeref

      Start from a college a student already likes to find similar colleges, with the reasons each one matches.

    • Admission chances snapshot

      www.collegesref.com/tools/admission-chances

      See where an SAT or ACT score sits against a college's middle 50% of admitted students: reach, target or likely.

    • Scholarships and grants

      www.collegesref.com/scholarships

      Federal, state and private scholarship and grant programs, filtered by state, grade and major, each linked to its official page.

    • Scholarship alerts by email

      www.collegesref.com/scholarships#scholarship-alert-title

      Students choose their state, grade and major and get an email when a matching scholarship deadline is coming up. No account needed.

    • Data stories

      www.collegesref.com/data

      Charts and tables on net price, debt and earnings by state and major, with the CSV behind each one.

    • Printable handout

      www.collegesref.com/resources/college-research-handout

      One Letter page listing every free tool with the address to type, for a career center, library desk or college night.

      PDF

    Use with students

    Common questions and the tool that answers each one.

    • A client family wants a cost comparison before the list is final.

      Put up to three colleges in the cost estimator to see sticker price, average net price after grants and a four-year total side by side.

      Open the cost estimator

    • A student's list is all reaches.

      Use the admission chances snapshot to place the test score against each college's middle 50%, then add targets with colleges-like matches.

      Check admission chances

    • A family asks how much they can borrow.

      The loan limits page shows federal Direct Loan limits by year in school and dependency status, and the gap left after net price.

      See federal loan limits

    Interested in a consultant plan?

    The tools on this page stay free. If a plan for your practice would help, such as branded PDF reports for clients, tell us what you need. We reply by email; nothing is charged and no price is set yet.

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    Data sources and reuse

    College figures come from the U.S. Department of Education's College Scorecard and IPEDS; each page shows the data year it uses. Our tables, charts and CSVs are free to reuse with credit under the CC BY 4.0 data license. How figures are chosen is on the methodology page.

    For journalists

    Data stories with CSVs, how to cite our figures and how to reach us are on the press page.

    Press and media

    CollegesRef Pro for IECs (beta, sign-in)

    Manage client profiles, run fit matrices and generate reports with frozen evidence snapshots.

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