BILL NUMBER: S5861
SPONSOR: GOUNARDES
 
TITLE OF BILL:
An act to amend the education law, in relation to a net price calculator
center for colleges
 
PURPOSE OR GENERAL IDEA OF BILL:
To create a centralized net price calculator for every college in the
state
 
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:
Section one adds a new section 689-b to the Education Law to create a
net price calculator center, which would measure the cost of attending a
college after deducting grants and scholarships but before loans, on the
Higher Education Services Corporation (HESC)'s website. Such net price
calculator shall be capable of producing cost estimates for all colleges
in the state after requiring a user to submit household, income, asset,
and other financial information only once. Users will not be required to
submit the same information repeatedly for each college for which they
wish to receive an estimate.
Section two provides the effective date.
 
JUSTIFICATION:
While many public and private colleges boast that only a small fraction
of students wind up paying the published tuition, it can be difficult
for families and individuals to understand exactly how much they are on
the hook for before they officially apply. This is where net price
calculators, which produce estimates for how much it costs to attend a
college after grants but before loans, come in. Net price calculators,
which many colleges provide online, are critical tools to help families
and individuals determine what kind of higher education they can truly
afford.
Unfortunately, the fact that these calculators are hosted on individual
college websites means that users must enter the same financial informa-
tion on dependency status, household income, assets, dividends, and
more, anew each time they wish to receive an estimated net price from a
college. While the US Department of Education has created a net price
calculator center online, it simply links to individual colleges' net
price calculators on their webpages - limiting the convenience, and thus
use, of this tool.
This bill would mandate that the NYS Higher Education Services Corpo-
ration (HESC) partner with the State Department of Education (DOE) to
create and host a net price calculator center on HESC's webpage which
produces estimates for any higher education institution in the state.
The HESC calculator could incorporate data and algorithms from existing
net price calculators, but would require users to enter their financial
information only once before producing net price estimates for any
college. The calculator center would thus act like a one-stop government
shop to help families determine exactly what kind of higher education
they can afford in New York. In the midst of a crippling college afford-
ability and enrollment crisis, easing the college search process by
centralizing transparency tools such as net price calculators is the
least we can do to help families and individuals pursue their dreams.
 
PRIOR LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:
2024: S.7857 - Referred to Higher Education
 
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
TBD
 
EFFECTIVE DATE:
This act shall take effect on the ninetieth day after it shall have
become a law.