🎯 In 30 seconds: An aid offer mixes gifts, a job and debt on one page, and many add them together into one “aid” number. Pull them apart. Net price is the cost of attendance minus grants and scholarships only. Compare net prices, then look at how much of the rest would be borrowed and by whom.
The parts of an offer
| Cost of attendance (COA) | Tuition and fees, plus housing, food, books, transportation and personal costs for a year. Only tuition, fees and on-campus housing show up on the college bill. The rest is an estimate of what you will spend. |
| Grants and scholarships | Gift money. You never repay it. Check whether it renews each year and what GPA it requires. |
| Work-study | Permission to earn up to that amount at a campus job. It is paid as wages during the year, so it cannot pay the first bill. |
| Federal student loans | Subsidized and unsubsidized Direct Loans in the student’s name. Rates are set each year. Check StudentAid.gov for the current rate. |
| Parent PLUS or private loans | Debt for the parent, or debt that needs a credit check. Some offers list these as if they were aid. They are not. |
Net price and the College Financing Plan
Net price = cost of attendance − grants and scholarships. That is what the family still has to cover, from savings, income, work or loans.
Many colleges use the Department of Education’s College Financing Plan, a standard layout that puts net price on its own line under “college costs you will be required to pay.” If a school sends a letter in its own format, rebuild it in that layout yourself. Ask the school for its College Financing Plan if it has one.
A side-by-side example
| Line | College A (private) | College B (in-state public) |
|---|---|---|
| Cost of attendance | $64,000 | $31,000 |
| College grant | $30,000 | $4,000 |
| State grant | $0 | $3,000 |
| Net price | $34,000 | $24,000 |
| Work-study | $2,500 | $0 |
| Federal Direct Loans (first year) | $5,500 | $5,500 |
| Parent PLUS “offered” | $20,000 | $0 |
| Left for the family to pay | $6,000 (more if no PLUS) | $18,500 |
College A’s letter might say “$58,000 in aid,” but $25,500 of that is loans and $2,500 is a job. The real comparison is net price: $34,000 against $24,000, a $10,000 gap each year. Over four years that is $40,000, before you check whether College A’s grant renews at the same amount.
College A only looks affordable if the parents borrow $20,000 a year in PLUS loans. Since July 1, 2026, Parent PLUS borrowing for new borrowers is capped at $20,000 a year and $65,000 per student. A four-year plan built on PLUS loans hits the cap in year four.
Questions to ask each college
- Is the grant renewable? What GPA or credit load keeps it?
- Do you raise tuition every year? By how much in recent years?
- Is housing required on campus? For how many years?
- If I win an outside scholarship, which part of my aid goes down first?
- Will you look again if another college offered more, or our finances changed?
Tools that use real data
- Net price calculators on each college’s website estimate what students like you paid last year, after grants. Run them before applying, not after.
- College Scorecard shows average annual cost by income band, graduation rates, typical debt and earnings by field of study.
- The Compare two award letters calculator in Paying for College does the net-price math for you.