AidAhead

Methodology

How the numbers are worked out

In the app, every figure opens a "Why?" sheet with its formula and the document and page it comes from. This page explains the method behind them and how we check it.

The federal aid index

The FAFSA® produces a Student Aid Index (SAI): the number colleges start from when they work out your need. A college's need for your child is its cost minus the aid index, never below zero.

  • The formula: AidAhead follows the U.S. Department of Education's 2027–28 Student Aid Index (SAI) and Pell Grant Eligibility Guide line by line, for dependent students and for both formulas for independent students. The tables (allowances and rates) come from the Department's Federal Register notice of June 2, 2026 (91 FR 32959). For 2026–27 it uses that year's guide.
  • The 2025 law (Public Law 119-21): included. A family business or farm the family controls, with 100 or fewer full-time employees, is left out of assets again, and there's no Pell Grant when the aid index is at least twice the maximum Pell Grant.
  • Which tax year: each FAFSA uses your tax return from two years before the school year starts (the "base year"). A school year starting in fall 2028 uses 2026 taxes.
  • Savings are counted as they stand on the day you file, as the FAFSA counts them. Your home and retirement accounts aren't counted.
  • Where the guide is silent, the choice we made is stated in that figure's "Why?" sheet.

Pell Grant

The Pell Grant follows the same guide and the Federal Student Aid Handbook: the maximum Pell Grant when your income is under the line for your family size and state (from the federal poverty guidelines), a calculated amount above that, the minimum Pell Grant where it applies, and none when the aid index is twice the maximum or more. AidAhead shows the full-time, full-year amount, limited by each college's cost.

How we check the federal figures

  • ED's worked example. The 2027–28 guide's example family (Appendix K) is reproduced on every line, ending at the guide's aid index of 12,198.
  • Hand-worked cases for each formula and every Pell break point, worked out from the guide by hand, never copied from the app's output.
  • An independent second calculation, written only from ED's documents by a separate process that never saw the app's code, compared with the app on 10,000 random households for each of 2026–27 and 2027–28: no differences, to the dollar. Every release reruns a sample of these.
  • The official Federal Student Aid Estimator at studentaid.gov, run by hand for 31 made-up families (2027–28): 27 match exactly. The other 4 differ where the estimator departs from ED's published guide, and AidAhead follows the guide:
    • one family exactly at a poverty-line boundary, which the guide rounds and the estimator doesn't;
    • two families at or above twice the maximum Pell Grant, where the 2025 law allows no Pell Grant and the estimator still shows one;
    • one unmarried independent student, where the guide gives no employment allowance and the estimator subtracts one.

Each college's estimate

  • Cost: each college's published cost of attendance (tuition and fees, housing and food, books and other costs) from the Department of Education's IPEDS college data, with its year, grown to each year your child would attend at the plan's rate. 3,648 U.S. colleges are included.
  • Colleges we've researched (105, mostly colleges that use the CSS Profile®): AidAhead's own method, built from ED's published tables plus each college's documented policies on home equity, a family business or farm, siblings in college, the other parent's income, and income-based free-tuition promises. It's then fitted so it reproduces what families at each income level actually paid at that college.
  • Not College Board's formula. The CSS Profile's own formula isn't public, so AidAhead never claims to reproduce it. That's why these estimates are shown as a range with a confidence level and a list of what each is based on.
  • How the range is checked: against results from colleges' own net price calculators for sample families the fit never saw. About 9 in 10 fell inside AidAhead's range.
  • Other colleges: the average net price paid by families at your income who got federal aid, as each college reports it to the Department of Education (College Scorecard), with its year.
  • Four-year cost: grants and scholarships come off the cost; loans and work-study are shown separately, because they're repaid or earned.

Merit scholarships

For 100 colleges we read each college's own scholarship page. Where a college publishes a table (this grade point average and this test score earn this amount), AidAhead shows the award that fits your child's numbers, with its conditions, and includes it in the four-year cost. Where a college doesn't publish one, AidAhead shows its typical merit award and how many students receive one, from the college's Common Data Set, and doesn't add it to your cost. An award is never certain: each college decides.

The base-year planner

A scenario changes one base year's income, or your savings before you file. AidAhead works out the federal and state tax for that year with the same tax engine as Taxtirement, our retirement planner, then the aid index and Pell Grant for each child whose FAFSA uses that year. Each result lists what it assumed and what it leaves out (for example, tax credits and investment growth). These are scenarios you choose, not suggestions to move or spend money.

Parent PLUS loans

For loans made from July 1, 2026, parents can borrow up to $20,000 a year and $65,000 in all for each student, and never more than the cost minus other aid (Public Law 119-21). AidAhead shows what that leaves for each year at each college, using the high end of each estimate so it doesn't understate what you may pay.

Sources

Every document is saved with the date we read it, and each value in the app cites its page.

  • U.S. Department of Education, Federal Student Aid: 2027–28 Student Aid Index (SAI) and Pell Grant Eligibility Guide, Version 1, June 2026.
  • U.S. Department of Education, Federal Student Aid: 2026–27 Student Aid Index (SAI) and Pell Grant Eligibility Guide, Version 1.1, August 2025.
  • U.S. Department of Education: Federal Need Analysis Methodology for the 2027–28 award year, Federal Register notice 2026-10986, 91 FR 32959 (June 2, 2026).
  • 2026–27 Federal Student Aid Handbook: Application and Verification Guide, chapter 3 (Student Aid Index and Pell Grant eligibility), and Volume 7, chapter 2 (calculating Pell Grants).
  • Federal Student Aid electronic announcements and Dear Colleague letters on the 2026–27 and 2027–28 FAFSA and Pell Grant changes.
  • Public Law 119-21 (2025), the student aid provisions.
  • U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: annual poverty guidelines, Federal Register (2024 and 2025).
  • U.S. Department of Education: IPEDS college data (costs) and College Scorecard (average net price by family income).
  • Each researched college's own financial aid, scholarship and policy pages, and its Common Data Set, each with the date read.

These are estimates. Colleges decide every award, and their figures can change from year to year. The FAFSA is free at studentaid.gov.