Dive Brief:

• Financial aid letters from colleges can be so confusing or misleading that some families sign up for education they cannot afford, according to college experts.
• The standardized Financial Aid Shopping Sheet, introduced by the Obama Administration to make cost comparisons easier, shows a school’s net price after subtracting free aid, such as grants and scholarships, but before loans or work study are included. But only 2,000 schools use it.
• One of the biggest problems is colleges that send financial aid letters without complete information about the cost of attendance, including estimates for tuition, fees, room and board, books, supplies, and transportation.

Dive Insight:

Another major issue, according to The Fiscal Times, is missing or misleading information about loans, such as when schools lump together gift aid with loan aid, or when they don’t clearly identify loans. Also, about half of all colleges front-load their grants, pushing gift aid into the first year and swapping it out for loans in the following years. And many schools don’t offer enough financial aid to cover the entire cost, but don’t clearly label the gap, which the student’s family is expected to pay for out of pocket.