Cost HERO Best Practices
Cost HERO is for early planners and late stage budgeters. Early Planners are able to develop a college budget well in advance of incurring college costs. Late Stagers—those who already know what they need to pay—use the tool to model ways to pay for college. Either way, Cost HERO is one of very few tools that help you see four years of college costs, and how they get paid, in a single application.
What You'll Need to Use Cost HERO Effectively
Using Cost HERO must be in a single session as we do not save your data.
Please gather the following information before you begin using the Cost HERO calculator:
- Parent(s) bank, investment account and 529 account statements
- Student bank, investment account and 529 account statements
- Grandparent or other bank, investment account and 529 account statements
- Parent(s) most recent pay stubs
- Monthly mortgage costs (principal, interest, taxes, insurance)
- Total auto loan or lease payments
- Total education loan payments
- Total credit card payments if you carry a balance
- Total payments for any other consumer loans
- Current monthly amount you contribute to college savings
- Private school tuition
- Estimate of what it costs to have a teen in your household
Since Cost Hero does not save your data, you'll need a plan to save your work.
We recommend that you use the “Print All” command (lower left portion of your screen) when you finish a scenario. This will provide a PDF of your work that can be saved on your computer.
You may also go back and adjust any data inputs, create another scenario and save that one, too.
Once you leave the tool, all your data is cleared from the system.
If you would like to have a PDF of your work sent by email, provide your name and email address when prompted and use the Submit feature.
We hope you find this free tool useful!