Financial aid award letters are deliberately incomparable across schools

When a student receives financial aid offers from multiple schools, each letter uses different terminology, different line-item structures, and different calculations to present costs. One school lists 'institutional grant' while another calls it 'merit scholarship' while a third bundles it into 'total financial aid' alongside federal loans — making loans look like free money. A family comparing offers from four schools must reverse-engineer each letter to calculate the actual out-of-pocket cost, which requires understanding the difference between subsidized loans, unsubsidized loans, work-study, grants, tuition discounts, and fee waivers. So what? Families — especially those without college-educated adults — routinely choose the school with the largest 'financial aid' number, not realizing that $20,000 of that 'aid' is loans they'll have to repay. So what? They discover sophomore year that they owe $15,000 more than they expected, can't afford to continue, and drop out with debt but no degree. Why does this persist? In 2023, the Department of Education proposed a standardized 'Financial Aid Offer' form (the College Financing Plan), but adoption is voluntary and fewer than 30% of schools use it. Schools that rely on confusing packaging to hit enrollment targets have no incentive to adopt a standard that would make their true cost transparent.