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More Than 360 Colleges Pledged to Make Their Financial-Aid Letters More Transparent. Here’s a Closer Look.

October 2, 2023

Getting accepted to college is one thing. But for many students one piece of correspondence that follows can carry even more weight: the financial-aid letter.

With the cost of college increasingly out-of-reach for so many, financial-aid offers are often critical to a student’s chances of attending a particular institution. However, those offers are typically confusing and difficult to compare.

A recently announced national initiative plans to change that, with more than 360 colleges agreeing to make their financial-aid packages more transparent. The College Cost Transparency Initiative, a task-force made up of the

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Getting accepted to college is one thing. But for many students, one piece of correspondence that follows can carry even more weight: the financial-aid letter.

With the cost of college increasingly out of reach for many, financial-aid offers are often critical to a student’s chances of attending a particular institution. However, those offers are typically confusing and difficult to compare.

A recently announced national initiative plans to change that, with more than 360 colleges agreeing to make their financial-aid packages more transparent. Headed by the leaders of 10 higher-education associations, the College Cost Transparency Initiative calls for colleges to follow standards that include using plain language to explain the aid offered, clearly labeling loans, and stating whether financial aid will be offered once or if it’s renewable.

The colleges that have signed on serve more than 3.8 million students. They’re a mix of two- and four-year public, private, and for-profit institutions that span more than 40 states — yet still represent a small slice of the higher-education landscape.

Other colleges that agree to standardize their offers in line with the initiative’s guidelines will join the list of partner institutions on a rolling basis. Here’s a look at the colleges that have already committed: