Before you can compare offers or appeal one, you have to read each offer accurately. Most offer letters are built to make the gift part of the package look larger than it is: loans are folded into the total at the top, and scholarships carry names that disguise what the dollar amount represents. The first job is to decode each letter into its parts and find the one number that matters.
Five kinds of money in an offer
An offer typically contains five categories. Grants are gift aid based on need and do not need to be repaid. Scholarships are gift aid based on merit, athletics, talent or other criteria, and also do not need to be repaid. Federal loans are debt your family repays with interest; subsidized federal loans do not accrue interest while your student is enrolled. Private or institutional loans are debt repaid with interest, often unsubsidized. Work-study is an offer of a part-time campus job, which your student still has to find and hold.
Only grants and scholarships are aid in the sense most families mean. Loans are debt your family takes on to pay the school, and work-study is income your student has to earn. Many letters show a single “total aid” figure that combines all five, which makes the package look larger than the gift inside it.
The actual net price
Net price is the published cost of attendance minus grants and scholarships only. Write the cost of attendance at the top, subtract grants, subtract scholarships, and look at what is left. That is what your family will pay each year before borrowing. Do this for every school on the list. Two offers with similar “total aid” figures can produce very different net prices once the loans come out, and families who skip this step tend to choose the school with the more impressive scholarship name rather than the lower price.
Scholarship names are wrappers
The New York Times has documented cases of single students receiving several differently named scholarships from the same school: a Distinguished Scholar Award, a Chancellor’s Award, a Personal Distinction Award. All of them came from one institution and reflected one underlying decision: the school wanted to discount tuition by a specific dollar amount to enroll that student. The names are marketing. The dollar amount is the price.
A $25,000 “Distinguished Scholar Award” at a school with a $75,000 sticker price is a 33 percent discount, not a recognition of distinction. Read the dollar amount and ignore the name.
Cross-check against the school’s average
The Common Data Set, which most American colleges publish each year, reports the school’s average non-need-based aid award. Compare your student’s offer to that average. If it is in the same range, your student is being treated as a typical merit recipient and the offer is unlikely to move. If it is materially below, there is room for an appeal. If it is materially above, the school is signaling unusual interest. Search the school’s name and “Common Data Set”; the merit aid figures are in section H.
Before you respond to any offer
Decode every letter before you respond to any of them, because the decoded numbers are the basis for any appeal. Do not pay a deposit anywhere until your appeals are settled. If the deposit deadline approaches while an appeal is still under review, ask the admissions office in writing for a short extension; most schools will grant one if the request is polite and in writing. Here is how to appeal a financial aid offer.
The cleanest single rule
Net price equals sticker price minus grants and scholarships only. Every other figure on the letter is either a wrapper for that number or a separate financial obligation being presented as if it were aid. Once you have the actual net prices for every school, the comparison becomes possible, and the question of whether to appeal becomes answerable.
Related: “Meets Full Need” Is a Methodology Promise, Not a Number · Merit Aid Is Pricing, Not Recognition
