Government Gives Colleges a Model for Telling Students What It Would Cost to Attend
"The Obama administration is releasing today the final version of a model financial-aid award letter that colleges can use to provide potential students with standardized information on their true costs of attendance, as well as any available grants, loans, and other financing options, such as Work-Study or military benefits," the
Chronicle of Higher Education reports. "Financial-aid officers have opposed standardization, even as they agree that aid-award letters should be improved. 'While we are pleased that institutions are not required to adopt the Shopping Sheet, we remain concerned with the inflexible standardization of the Shopping Sheet and, more broadly, with the multitude of consumer disclosure initiatives that have been introduced in recent months,' Justin Draeger, president of the National Association of Financial Aid Advisors, said in a written statement.'Institutions need flexibility to design a financial-aid award letter that best meets the needs of their unique student populations.'"