Families often can find the elusive tools by entering the college's name and "net price calculator" into a search engine.
Another place to find links to net price calculators is on each college's information page on the College Board's Big Future site. This provides other critical aid information, such as the percentage of financial need each college meets.
One other potentially helpful tool is average net prices by income, or what other people actually paid. It can be found at the National Center for Education Statistics.
Results Vary
The relevance and accuracy of all this information can be questionable, though.
The difference between calculator estimates and actual costs for many families will be as little as $500, but for some, the gap could be as wide as $5,000, said Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of education resource website Edvisors.com.
The Ticas report said many colleges used outdated cost information in their net price calculators. In addition, 40 percent included estimates of "self-help," including work study and loans, and most made this lower "estimated remaining cost" figure more prominent than the federally required net price.
The calculators also vary dramatically in their design and the amount of information they require. The number of questions range from eight to 70, as some schools want the calculator to be as easy to use as possible, while others try for the most accurate results.
College access advocates such as Ticas worry that fewer families will complete the calculator if it is too complex or requires information that can only be gleaned from tax returns.
On the other side, consultants like O'Shaughnessy say the simplified versions' estimates can be far off base.