(Washington, D.C.) Iowa U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley says a method needs to be established to make it easier for students and their families to understand financial aid offers and compare college costs. He is working on a bipartisan bill, “The Understanding of the “True Cost of College Act.”
Senator Grassley says that with college tuition continuing to skyrocket, it is more important than ever to ensure that students have the information they need when deciding where to go to college. He says families often struggle to compare financial aid offers accurately because each institution uses its terminology, abbreviations, and acronyms to describe different types of aid in their offer of financial assistance forms. The Senator says a GAO survey found over 90 percent of colleges understate the total price students will pay to attend the institution.
He says the bipartisan and bicameral bill would require colleges to use uniform financial aid offer forms and develop standard definitions that would be used in all financial award letters.
Call on the Department of Education to work with colleges, consumer groups, students, and school guidance counselors to develop standard definitions of various financial aid for use in the uniform offer of financial assistance forms.
The bill also requires the Department of Education to establish a process for consumers to test the uniform financial aid offer form and use the results in the final development of the form.
