The brief, conducted by the Alliance for Higher Education and Democracy at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education (Penn AHEAD) studied 80 four-year colleges universities, including both private and public institutions that serve large percentages of Pell Grant recipients.
Prospective students and families have been, and still are concerned about how to pay for a student’s college education, said author of the brief Dr. Laura Perna who is the James S. Riepe Professor at the University of Pennsylvania and executive director of PennAHEAD.
“… Net price calculators are one of the few mechanisms available for the prospective students and their families to get some indication of what their own costs will be based on their personal circumstances,” Perna added. “It’s quite worrisome actually that these net price calculators aren’t working the way we’d like them to.”
Dr. Laura Perna
Under the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008, U.S. colleges and universities are legally required to provide prospective students with accurate information about the cost of a college information. Having this information early in the college application process and without completing a FAFSA application, the brief said, is increasingly important for first-generation, low-income students and those who do not have access to college and financial aid counselors.
Twelve of the 44 institutional NPC outputs that provided a line item for loans did not clearly differentiate loans from grants and scholarships, the brief found.
