For many students who apply to college seeking financial aid, the cost ends up much higher than the estimates provided by schools, particularly those schools trying to appear more attractive to prospective students as they battle declining enrollment.
House and Senate lawmakers want to end the bait-and-switch practice by passing legislation to force colleges and universities to disclose the true cost of attendance in their financial aid offers.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, plans to introduce a measure in the coming weeks that would require colleges and universities to use a universal financial aid offer form that would clearly outline the actual cost of attendance at a particular school. Sen. Tina Smith, Minnesota Democrat, co-sponsored the bill with Mr. Grassley in the previous Congress and an identical measure has bipartisan support in the House.
The legislation was first introduced in 2012 and while it has had the backing of lawmakers in both parties, the bill has never gained traction in Congress.
Advocates hope a recent study by the U.S. Government Accountability Office will provide momentum for the House and Senate to pass the measure this year.
The GAO report found at colleges and universities it studied, most failed to reveal to prospective students the true cost of attendance, leaving out hefty expenses such as meal plans in some cases, or subtracting from the cost of the loans that students and parents will have to pay back later.
Overall, the GAO found that 91% of colleges in their financial aid offers fail to provide students with “a complete estimate of the net price” which is the amount a student can expect to pay for college.
According to the GAO, college and university officials provided varying reasons for failing to fully disclose costs, including a lack of staff or technology needed to implement the changes. Another leading reason for the obfuscation, the GAO found, is competition with other schools and a fear of causing “sticker shock” if a school reveals to students the true price tag for attending.
“Some stakeholders said that colleges that follow the best practices by including information on the full cost of attendance in a financial aid offer may be placing themselves at a competitive disadvantage to colleges that do not include this information,” GAO officials wrote in the report.
College enrollment has been on the decline for three years in a row and is down roughly 7% from 2019, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. The dip has slowed now that the pandemic is over, but the overall decline continues. It has left colleges struggling to recruit new students and forced some colleges and universities to shutter or be absorbed by other schools.
Edward Conroy, a senior education policy at New America, a public policy think tank, said the schools are intentionally trying to scam students.
“But they are competing for students, and so they’re trying to paint themselves in the best possible light, and that’s understandable,” Mr. Conroy, who previously worked as a financial aid officer at UCLA, said. “But students and their families are making one of the biggest financial decisions of their lives. There’s almost no other financial decision this large that anybody engages in, in America.”
New America is among 35 organizations, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, NAACP, Partners for College Affordability and Public Trust and the Institute for Higher Education Policy, who back the financial aid transparency legislation.
The bill would standardize financial aid offer forms and require minimum information such as cost of attendance, grant aid, the total amount a student would be responsible for paying and disclosures about student and parent loans.
“We think that there should be some sort of bare minimum, showing what every student gets,” Mr. Conroy said.
Sen. Joni Ernst, an Iowa Republican and co-sponsor of the legislation, said a standardized financial aid offer form would make it easier for students to determine which school is more affordable, especially if they receive multiple offers.
“The one time students should be given a cheat sheet is to reveal the true cost of college tuition,” Ms. Ernst told The Washington Times.
• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.