Make college cheaper
Do not just take what’s offered
Ask for an appeal

If you have a high school senior in your family, March and April are probably the two most emotionally loaded months of your year, and possibly your lives.

Now is the time that colleges and universities send offers of financial aid to every accepted applicant. Financial aid can include grants, which are need-based aid to families with income and assets below certain thresholds. It also includes scholarships, which are officially called “non-need merit-based aid”. These awards are given to students who meet specific academic and extra-curricular standards.

Schools will also list federal education loans as financial aid on offer letters. It is important to understand that loans are actually considered aid. Financial aid offer letters should be scrutinized closely to understand which parts of the offer represent free money – grants and scholarships require no repayment – versus loans that must be repaid with interest.

Throughout this process, remember higher education is a business.

Colleges and universities compete for the best and brightest students. They have enormous pressure to deliver exceptional experiences to students. They compete with other institutions on salary and benefits for the professors who will help make the school more appealing to discerning families.

All of this means that when making offers of aid the schools will try to get any student to enroll using the least amount of aid. The less aid they give, the more immediate revenue the family will provide the school.

There is no rule that says you must take what the schools offer. Unless your financial aid offer is a full ride for both tuition and room and board, you should appeal your offer.

Ideally, the appeals process should be led by the student, not the parents. If you are the school, would you be more likely to grant an appeal to a student who is taking the initiative to reach out directly, or to parents who are reaching out on behalf of a reticent child? For appeals of need-based aid, contact the school’s financial aid office. For appeals of merit-based aid, reach out to the school’s admissions office.

In both cases, avoid simply asking for more money. Services like Tuition Fit can show you what a given school has offered other students with similar financial and academic backgrounds. You can also use your other financial aid offers as leverage. This is a process where you use offers from similar schools to ask “school A has offered me $X more in aid, can you match it?”

With both Tuition Fit and leverage, you are using real data to ask for a specific amount of aid. An appeal call or letter should contain language like “I am getting $X from school ABC, but I feel that your school is the perfect fit for me. Please use your professional judgment to review my offer to see if there is any way you can match the offer from school ABC.”

The more specific you can be, the better.

Along with a thoughtful and diverse college list, the appeals process is one of the most effective tools a family has to help control the cost of college. An appeal will not impact your child’s admission status. The worst that can happen is that the school rejects the appeal.

Remember Wayne Gretzky’s quote: “you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”