Wellesley Is the First Liberal Arts College to Offer Spanish-Language Estimates of What Parents Can Expect to Pay

In September, Wellesley launched My inTuition: Wellesley’s Quick College Cost Estimator, a tool that asks just six basic financial questions before providing a personalized estimate of an individual’s college costs at Wellesley. Today, Wellesley announces a new, Spanish-language version of the tool. Wellesley is among the first selective, private colleges in the United States to forecast the cost of attendance incorporating financial aid, and is the only school in this category to provide simplified forecasts in either Spanish or English. 

According to Jennifer Desjarlais, dean of admission and financial aid, providing a Spanish-language version of the estimator represents the College’s latest effort in its long-standing commitment to access—and to giving prospective students a quick and realistic range of their personalized college costs. “We are taking an important step in continuing to expand access by providing more information to families, and that work continues,” she said.

Since Wellesley first released the cost estimator in September, more than 15,000 people have used the tool. Phil Levine, Katharine Coman and A. Barton Hepburn Professor of Economics, invented My inTuition and hopes that by offering the Spanish-language version, even more people will be able to benefit from the clarity provided by the tool. “Many elite colleges like Wellesley are committed to educating smart, talented students, regardless of their ability to pay. Our cost estimator spells out loud and clear: ‘If your daughter is right for Wellesley, we might be your most affordable option.’”

My inTuition was translated into Spanish by Camila Diaz ’15, an economics major, in consultation with Wellesley Professor of Spanish Carlos Ramos. Diaz, who hails from the Bronx, N.Y., believes that the tool will be useful to future college hopefuls and their families.  

“It is incredibly easy to use, and it asks for information that our parents usually have on hand, so they don't have to dig up tax returns just to have an estimate of what it would cost to come to Wellesley,” Diaz said. She added, “I know that this would have been incredibly helpful when my friends and I were applying to college, especially to try to convince our parents to not just look at the +$50,000 price tags, but to focus more on each of the schools we were looking at and what they had to offer.”

The tool is free and available en Español online at www.wellesley.edu/estimadordecostos or in English at www.wellesley.edu/costestimator.