MODERATOR’S NOTE: This journalist, @PleaseTalkToMe, has permission to solicit stories from CC users. Her post was deleted earlier, so I am copying and pasting it here.
“Did your financial aid letter lead you to believe you were getting more “gift” aid than you actually received, forcing you to take out more loans than you had intended? If so, a national publication would love to interview you for an article appearing soon. Please send me a private message with your contact info or write to me at jenniwolff@gmail.com. Thanks, and hope to hear from you.”
Just going to throw this out there. My oldest attended school at my employer. So, I’ve actually received an aid letter for a student and heard my students discuss their aid. I thought the letter was very clear. Loans were clearly marked as loans. And every student who attends here gets offered the Direct Loan in the package itself and the Parent Plus Loan to cover the remaining balance (EFC and gap). However, I’ve heard many a student say, “Oh, I don’t have loans, just financial aid.” Not sure the letters themselves are the entire problem.
Hi @ordinarylives. I agree that some letters are clear. But I have a whole stack of them from a financial aid adviser, and many are incredibly confusing. Some do differentiate loans from aid, but often they are bundled together as aid, and that can be misleading, or at least confusing to some, especially first gen students for whom English is a second language. But even a group of students I showed them to – all of whom are smart, educated and speak native English- felt confused.
@kelsmom wasn’t there a rule change recently that said colleges need to clearly differentiate between loans and grants and whatnot on award letters? Or am I making that up?
PleaseTalkToMe, there’s a lot on CC that shows kids don’t properly try to understand the differences. Maybe, as you explore this topic, you can explain how they should.
@romanigypsyeyes , the government has asked schools to use the Financial Aid Shopping Sheet, but it’s not mandatory. I use it, but frankly, I don’t care for it. I have an award letter that shows a student’s awards, then has a detailed description of all possible awards. I send that with the shopping sheet, which has the same info but in a sort of confusing format. The shopping sheet could be very good with a few tweaks (like, I should not have to list Pell Grants for grad students, since they will always be N/A, but I can’t alter the format!). The shopping sheet does break things into gift aid, self help and loans: https://www.ifap.ed.gov/eannouncements/attachments/ShoppingSheetTemplate20152016.pdf.
I give detailed instructions, in a format many students find very helpful. But there are always those who don’t bother to read … and those are the ones who say they didn’t know (but they SHOULD have known).