How the cost estimates are worked out

For each of the student's applications, the cost page puts tuition, living costs and a total for the whole programme side by side, in euros.

What you see

The page, Cost estimates, has one row per application, under the columns Programme, Tuition / year, Living / month and Total cost. On a phone, each application becomes a card with the same figures.

When the catalogue records mandatory fees for a programme, they appear under its tuition as a separate yearly line.

Where each figure comes from

Tuition is the programme's yearly fee as the catalogue records it. For some programmes the catalogue also holds a separate fee for international students. The page uses that fee when the student is a citizen of a country outside the European Union, the other EEA countries (Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway) and Switzerland.

The country the page goes by is the student's citizenship, as recorded on the student's account. When no country is recorded, the page treats the student as a citizen of an EU country.

An amount recorded in another currency is converted to euros at the exchange rates Accepted stores. When Accepted has no exchange rate for that currency, the figure isn't shown in euros: in its place, the page says which currency has no rate. The total leaves such a figure out and says so under it, for example Excludes tuition (no exchange rate on file).

Living costs are the university's own published figure, when the catalogue has one. Otherwise they are Accepted's estimate for the university's city, taken only from the same country: a city with the same name in another country is never used. When neither exists, the row has no living cost. If the city estimates cannot be loaded, the page still opens, without them: the rows that would use one show no living cost, and their totals leave it out.

Under each living cost, a line says where the figure comes from and, when one is recorded, its date: University's own estimate, or a city estimate, named after its provider when Accepted can name one. The line also says when a figure is old. When every city estimate on the page is old, one note above the table says so: City living costs are 2024 estimates, not current figures — treat them as a rough order of magnitude and check local sources before budgeting.

The total works from a yearly living cost, and the column shows that yearly figure per month.

The total

The total is one year of tuition, mandatory fees and living costs, multiplied by the programme's length, which is shown under it. When tuition or the living cost is missing, the total leaves it out and says so under it: Excludes tuition (no figure on file) or Excludes living costs (no figure for this city). Such a total is lower than the real cost. A programme with no mandatory fees on file simply has none added. When neither tuition nor a living cost can be counted, there is no total. When the catalogue doesn't record the programme's length, there is no total either, and the line under it reads duration not on file.

Why it works this way

The cost page uses the same calculations as the student's own finance page: the same rule for which tuition fee applies, the same conversion of mandatory fees, the same choice between the university's figure and the city estimate, and the same total. Without a recorded length, Accepted doesn't guess one: a guessed length would give a wrong total.

What Accepted doesn't do

The total adds only tuition, mandatory fees and living costs. Travel to and from home, visas, deposits and anything else the catalogue doesn't record as a mandatory fee are not in it.

Accepted doesn't know about scholarships or what the family will actually pay. The note under the table asks you to check each university for its current fees.

Living costs are estimates, and what a student actually spends depends on how they live.

The parent account