"A school's sticker price is rarely the actual amount families will pay for college, and many are often unsure of the true cost of college," U.S. News & World Report writes. "Colleges participating in federal financial aid programs are required to supply families with a net price calculator on their website. Schools have the option to use a federal template or create their own calculator. Since the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008 first mandated their inclusion by the end of October 2011, legislators have moved to improve the implementation of net price calculators. In March, a bipartisan group presented an amendment to the Higher Education Act aimed at making net price calculators easier to find and use."

"The latest research, released in March by a group of researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, shows that some colleges aren't complying with the original federal mandate. What's more, the report highlights other issues like outdated data used in some net price calculators and discrepancies in the way colleges define net price that make the tool significantly less useful to families.

These findings can have a wide-reaching impact on prospective students making their college decision.

...Net price calculators benefit families by providing information about financial aid at a particular institution early in the college search process and allowing families to compare the cost of colleges, says Karen McCarthy, director of policy analysis at the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. They can also help bust affordability myths, particularly about the cost of private institutions, but the estimated out-of-pocket costs should be taken with a grain of salt, she says.

'Before we had net price calculators, oftentimes students didn't have an idea of what their out-of-pocket costs would be until they had actually applied for admission somewhere, applied for financial aid and gotten an award letter. At that point, they are pretty far along in the application process,' McCarthy says. 'It is helpful from that perspective: It gets you some information earlier.'