StudentAid: College Cost & Aid Estimator

1. Initial Screen
3. Selected School Info
5. Tool tip to understand Donut data
4. Selected School Info with different income
2. Search School

Inspiration

College pricing is confusing—sticker price isn’t what families actually pay. First-gen and low-income students are asked to make life-changing decisions with opaque numbers. We wanted a simple, transparent way to see the real cost in seconds.

What it does

StudentAid lets you search a school and instantly see:

Net price (from the U.S. Dept. of Education’s College Scorecard API)
Tuition (in-state & out-of-state)
Acceptance rate
A clear donut chart showing grants, work-study, loans, and out-of-pocket
Tooltips that explain what’s from the API vs. modeled and the formulas used

How we built it

Frontend: React + TypeScript, Tailwind CSS, Recharts
Backend: Node.js + Express (with a small in-memory cache)
Data: College Scorecard API (schools, acceptance, tuition, net price by income bracket)
Explainability: Inline tooltips so the model isn’t a black box
We request net price by income bracket; if a value is missing, we fall back to tuition so users still get an estimate.

Challenges we ran into

Data gaps & schema quirks: Some schools don’t report net price for every bracket; Scorecard uses flattened field names.
Realism vs. clarity: We needed an explainable model within hackathon time, not a full aid calculator.
UX under time pressure: Getting search, responsive layout, and readable tooltips to feel smooth.

Accomplishments that we’re proud of

A fast, clean UI that turns confusing costs into a single visual.
Transparent tooltips so judges/users can see exactly how numbers are computed.
Graceful fallbacks so the app stays useful even when an API field is missing.

What we learned

Open data is powerful—and messy. Good fallbacks matter.
Trust = clarity. Showing formulas and sources increases confidence.
Small UX details (search-as-you-type, tabular numbers, tooltips) make complex info understandable.

What’s next for StudentAid: College Cost & Aid Estimator

FAFSA/StudentAid.gov integration (real award letters)
Program-level outcomes (earnings, completion) to pair cost with value
Scholarship suggestions & Pell eligibility hints
Multi-school compare view and export/share (PDF)
Accessibility/i18n and mobile PWA

The (simple) math we show to users

Let (N)=net price, (G)=grants, (W)=work-study, (L)=loans, and (C=\$1800).

$$ \begin{aligned} G &= \min{G^*(I),\, N},\quad G^*(I)= \begin{cases} 9000 & I \le 30000\ 7000 & 30001 \le I \le 48000\ 5000 & 48001 \le I \le 75000\ 2500 & 75001 \le I \le 110000\ 1000 & I \ge 110001 \end{cases} \end{aligned} $$

$$ W= \begin{cases} 2000 & I \le 110000\ 1500 & I > 110000 \end{cases} $$

$$ L=\max{0,\, N-G-W-C},\quad C=1800 $$

$$ \mathrm{OOP}=\max{0,\, N-G-W-L} $$