About College Fit Finder

How to use it

Start with limits, then score preferences.

College Fit Finder uses a two-stage process. Stage 1 removes schools that fail a deal-breaker. Stage 2 ranks the remaining schools by the preferences you weight.

Use Stage 1 only for limits that are truly nonnegotiable: maximum cost, minimum graduation rate, location type, system, or test policy. Use Stage 2 for tradeoffs such as major interest, affordability, completion, earnings, and debt.

Scoring

The fit score is a sorting tool, not an admission prediction.

The app calculates a 0 to 100 fit score for schools that pass Stage 1. Scores are relative to the filtered set currently on screen. Change the filters, and the comparison group changes too.

AffordabilityLower published COA and lower average price after aid score better.

CompletionHigher graduation and retention rates score better.

Academic fitSelected majors improve the score when the school reports bachelor’s completions in that program family, with a larger boost for top-three fields.

EarningsHigher median earnings 10 years after entry score better.

Low debtLower median federal student loan debt scores better.

Definitions

What each field does

Profile

Profile: Switches between saved teenager profiles in the same browser. It does not change rankings by itself.
Family income range: Chooses the average price-after-aid field shown for families in that income range. It is a benchmark, not a personalized aid estimate.

Stage 1: hard filters

Max on-campus COA: Removes schools with published in-state on-campus cost of attendance above the entered amount.
Max average price after aid: Removes schools whose average price after grants and scholarships exceeds the entered amount for the selected income range.
Minimum graduation rate: Removes schools below the entered six-year graduation rate.
Minimum retention rate: Removes schools below the entered first-year retention rate.
Admit rate floor and ceiling: Limits the visible set to a selectivity range. This is not a personal admission-odds estimate.
System: Limits results to the UNC System, the State University System of Florida, or both.
Setting: Uses a simplified version of IPEDS locale: urban, suburban, small city, or rural.
Test policy: Keeps schools whose admissions testing policy matches the selected option.
Hide source-needed rows: Removes schools with row notes that include [SOURCE NEEDED]. This can hide useful schools when only one field is missing.

Stage 2: scoring preferences

Major interests: Does not remove schools. It raises academic fit when a school reports bachelor’s completions in that program family, and raises it more when the field is also one of the school’s top-three completion families.
Affordability weight: Higher weight gives more influence to lower on-campus COA and lower average price after aid.
Completion weight: Higher weight gives more influence to graduation and retention rates.
Academic fit weight: Higher weight gives more influence to selected major interests.
Earnings weight: Higher weight gives more influence to College Scorecard median earnings 10 years after entry.
Low debt weight: Higher weight gives more influence to lower median federal student loan debt at graduation.
Preferred setting weight: Has limited effect because setting is already a hard filter. Use Setting as a deal-breaker when location type matters.

Result columns

COA: Published in-state undergraduate on-campus cost of attendance. Lower values improve affordability.
Net price: Average price after grants and scholarships for aid recipients in the selected income range. It is not the price for a non-aided family.
Grad: Six-year graduation rate. Higher values improve completion score.
Earnings: College Scorecard median earnings 10 years after entry. Higher values improve earnings score.
Debt: College Scorecard median federal student loan debt at graduation. Lower values improve low-debt score.
Program signal: Shows whether selected interests are top-three fields, offered program families, or not visible in the bachelor’s completions data.
Share settings: Copies a no-account link that preserves the current profile’s filters, weights, major interests, and selected comparison schools.

Data sources

Primary-source data, with gaps labeled.

The dataset is limited to 16 UNC System universities and 12 State University System of Florida institutions. System membership was checked against the UNC System and the Florida Board of Governors.

Enrollment, admissions, retention, graduation, cost, average price after aid, aid, locale, completions, and bachelor’s program-family signals primarily come from IPEDS Data Center files. Earnings and debt come from the College Scorecard data. Ranking fields come from the 2026 U.S. News exports used to build the CSV and should be read by category, since U.S. News Best Colleges uses different ranking categories.

Every row in the CSV includes Sources and Data Quality Notes columns. Blank data with [SOURCE NEEDED] means the value was not verified from the allowed sources when the dataset was built.

Caveats

Use the tool to narrow the conversation.

Average price after aid is for students receiving aid, not a promise of what any one family will pay. Published cost of attendance is a sticker price, not an aid offer. The four-year COA field in the CSV is a current-rate multiplication, not an inflation forecast.

Program signal is based on bachelor’s completions by CIP family. It is stronger than a top-three-only proxy, but it is still not a complete catalog of every major, concentration, minor, certificate, or newly launched program.

Do not compare U.S. News ranks across categories as if they are one list. A National Universities rank and a Regional Universities South rank answer different ranking questions.

Author

Developed by Wayan Vota

This site was built by Wayan Vota as a family decision tool for comparing public universities in North Carolina and Florida. He compiled the data and created the site using OpenAI Codex.

The design choice behind the site is simple: expose the data, show the source gaps, and let families decide which tradeoffs matter. The app does not recommend a winner. It helps students and parents make a shorter, better-informed list.