Colleges Don't Make It Easy

Guest post by the fabola Hillel Bromberg
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I am a FUEL Education staff member living through the same exciting time as our program parents.

My older son is a college sophomore and my younger son is awaiting college acceptances and the financial aid letters that go with them. As the acceptances have rolled in (he’s eight for nine – I’m so proud of him!), I found that I needed a grid to help us understand the costs and other factors that will go into the final decision. These kinds of grids are readily available online, like this one and this one for example, but mine is a homemade job that allows us to compare the schools’ costs and offerings side by side.

To help us understand the real cost of attending the various schools, I broke down Cost into Cost/Year – Financial Aid Offer = Net Cost.Now here’s the thing. Getting the cost/year figure from each institution where my son has been accepted was surprisingly difficult. Only a couple of schools put all of the information in one place. For most institutions, I had to go to one website for tuition and fees, another for housing, and yet another for meal plans. One school adds $5,775 for indirect costs like books and supplies, travel, and personal costs, while another lists $2,938 for the same things.

  Confused yet? We sure are.

Wait, there’s more. Every college is required by law to post a net price calculator on their websites, but these are only rough estimates of the cost of attending that school, and they are confusing too. One suggests that we have our 2013 income tax returns, earnings statements, and bank statements at the ready. Another wants those items plus investment account statements, and student academic information. Still another wants seemingly unrelated information like age, class rank, and citizenship status.

What’s a responsible college applicant to do?

We are very fortunate that my son has been offered several merit scholarships, but even these need to be reviewed carefully. The letter from one school says, “For most students, the total scholarship award will cover at least full tuition and fees.” Hmmm, I wonder what at least means. And later in the same letter, it says, “After your admission is complete, the financial aid office will inform you of the amount of your additional Honors merit scholarship.” So in other words, tell us you’re going to our school, THEN we’ll tell you how much it’s going to cost. That’s kind of like driving out of a dealership, then finding out how much you’re paying for your new car.

The bottom line is that colleges are not trying to make this easy for us as consumers. They want us to be dazzled by their reputation and their programs, their lovely dorms and their range of extracurricular activities. Yes, these things are part of the equation, but if we can’t afford to send our children or if they graduate with a mountain of debt, does it really matter how many different housing options the school offers?

A college education is one of the largest and most important purchases that most people will make. The principle of caveat emptor – let the buyer beware – applies here as it does with any other acquisition. Know what you are buying and how much it costs; ask lots of questions and don’t be satisfied with partial answers. The colleges are responsible for educating our children. Let’s urge them to be just as responsible for being above-board about how much it costs.
(crossposted on the FUEL blog)

FUEL Education is a Boston-based nonprofit that coaches low-income parents in Lynn, Chelsea, and Boston so they have the knowledge, skills, and network to propel their children into higher education. FUEL’s outcomes are remarkable: almost 100% of FUEL high school graduates go immediately to college and 90% of those are persisting toward their degrees (the national average is about 60% and even lower for this at-risk population).

 Hillel Bromberg currently shills for FUEL Education as a grant writer. Previously, he's been a lamprey herder, written extensively on the significance of the geopolitics of Lithuanian slug communes and sharpened pencils while riding his trusty yak, Alice. He’s also in the midst of raising three remarkable kiddles, keeping up with his New Yorker mags (more or less) and preparing his butt calluses for another season on the bike.