Work Out What a Course Really Costs Per Credit — Free
Paste the fee lines from two or three programmes and read cost per credit, per contact hour and per module side by side — including the fees brochures keep in a footnote.
The proof surface
The point is not to rank schools. It is to turn three differently-shaped fee sheets into one comparable number, so a footnote levy cannot hide inside a term bill.
Why the flat version breaks
Sticker-price comparison
An $11,900 diploma looks cheaper than $18,400 until credits are normalised; the cheaper-looking option turns out to cost $99.17 per credit against $102.22.
Contact-hour blindness
Two programmes with the same credit count can differ by 180 teaching hours, which is the whole difference for someone changing careers while working.
Invisible levies
Studio, library and graduation levies never appear in the brochure headline, and they are exactly the lines a registrar will confirm if you ask by name.
How to work the cost-per-credit matrix
Three programmes, one line per fact, exactly as printed — including the levies you were told were 'nominal'.
The budget field only places the cheapest option against what you can pay; it changes no other number.
Cost per credit and cost per contact hour are computed per row, and the leader is marked by weight rather than a badge.
The action line names the levy rows to query; ask for the per-credit figure in writing before you accept an offer.
What the matrix replaces
| Decision | Without the sheet | With the matrix |
|---|---|---|
| Which programme is dearer | compare headline tuition | compare cost per credit after levies |
| Is the bootcamp worth it | count weeks of teaching | cost per contact hour, printed |
| What to ask the registrar | 'is there anything else?' | the exact levy lines to query |
Every figure in the third column comes from the reader's own pasted lines, so it can be checked with a calculator in under a minute.
Run it on the samples, right here
FIRST-LOAD
Data note: Pasted fee lines stay in this tab; the matrix is recomputed on this device and no fee sheet is uploaded anywhere.
Go deeper: the companion app files the same reading as a scored comparison matrix
The article demo above runs without limits. The companion app keeps a local history, exports the rows as CSV, prints the ready-to-mail packet, and holds your drafts on this device — one free run, then $ 7 one-time for the layer that keeps filing.
The matrix and the normalised columns are free. The paid layer keeps three programmes on file and prints the comparison as a one-page decision sheet.
Open the cost-per-credit matrix companionBoundary
This is arithmetic on fee lines you supply, not admissions advice and not a guarantee of cost. Fees change, levies are sometimes waivable, and funded places alter the total. Confirm every figure with the registrar in writing before you commit money, and speak to the institution's finance office if a levy looks unexplained.
What this is built on
- Fee lines are the reader's own quotes; no institutional figure is asserted by this tool.
- Normalisation method: total fee ÷ credits, and total fee ÷ contact hours, both printed beside the raw inputs.
- Where a programme bills per module, paste the module fee and module credits and the same arithmetic applies.
Before: the reader compared sticker prices. After: they can see one programme charging 31% more per credit because the fees were normalised from their own sheet.