Comparing four-year cost, not first-year cost

A large first-year award can hide a much more expensive degree, and aid letters are formatted in a way that makes this easy to miss.

Front-loaded packages are common. A generous first-year grant that shrinks in years two through four is a legitimate practice and a real trap, because the number families compare is almost always the first-year one.

Check whether each award is renewable, and on what condition. 'Renewable with satisfactory academic progress' is a low bar. 'Renewable with a 3.5' is a genuine risk in a demanding major, and losing it in year two turns a cheap school into an expensive one with no exit.

Then account for cost growth. Tuition rises most years, and a fixed-dollar scholarship covers a shrinking share of it each year. A grant expressed as a percentage of tuition behaves very differently from one expressed in dollars.

Add the years you'll actually enroll. If your program is commonly five years, or requires a summer term, or if your credits won't transfer cleanly, the four-year comparison is understating the real number.

Build one table: for each school, the net cost for each of four years, with the renewal conditions written next to it. It takes twenty minutes and it routinely reverses which school looked cheaper.

Then ask each aid office directly what happens in year two. They will answer, and the answer is frequently not what the letter implied.