Tips for decoding college financial aid offers — from nytimes.com by Ann Carrnes
Excerpts:
Schools often use different jargon for the same types of aid or loans. Student advocates offer suggestions on how to figure out what you’ll pay.
After the college acceptance letter comes the financial aid offer. But beware: The offers are not always easy to decipher, and different colleges often use different jargon for the same types of aid or loans.
Among the colleges that offered a common type of federal loan, for instance, researchers found more than 100 terms for the loan, including two dozen that didn’t even mention the word “loan.”
To compare aid offers, student advocates recommend that you…(see the details in the article)