Comparing award letters can be confusing. And comparing school A to school B even more so. Our Financial Aid Offer Comparison tool cuts through complex and confusing language and makes comparing financial aid offers so much easier. Most importantly, it gives you a clearcut comparison based on net price and expected debt at graduation.
Here are a few frequently asked questions we have about the process.
Question: What is the Financial Aid Offer Comparison Tool?
Answer: College Raptor’s Financial Aid Offer Comparison tool is a resource that helps you understand how much money in financial aid you’re going to receive from a particular school using AI predictions. The tool also lets you directly compare schools’ offers so you can understand which options are the best for your current finances and how much debt you can expect after graduation.
Colleges often use misleading terminology or different formats compared to other schools. Understanding and comparing financial aid offers can get confusing. The Comparison tool makes it extremely easy to understand and determine whether or not you’re getting a good deal from any particular college or university.
Question: How Can You Upload Your Financial Aid Offers?
Answer: After you’ve registered for a College Raptor account and gone to the Comparison tool, you can add your financial aid offers by text message, file upload, or manually typing it in. Files accepted include JPG, PNG, GIF, and PDF.
Question: How Does College Raptor Protect Your Sensitive Information?
Answer: College Raptor takes privacy and security seriously! We take encrypt all of your information and keep it safe. When you add your financial aid offers to the Comparison tool, you can choose to redact any sensitive information that can be found on the paperwork. And, we will never provide personally identifiable information about you to colleges or anyone else without your permission.
Question: What Does the Financial Aid Offer Summary Tell You?
Answer: After you’ve uploaded or entered an offer in, you will be able to see a summary of the offer. This will list out
- Tuition
- Total cost
- Grants and scholarships
- Net price
- Estimated debt at graduation
Question: What is the Estimated Debt at Graduation Based On?
Answer: The estimated debt at graduation is not a guarantee of what you will owe after your graduation. This number is based on
- How much your family may pay per year towards your college expenses
- How many hours you participate in work-study
- 4-year graduation timetable
- The length of time you will take to repay the debt
Question: How Can You Compare Financial Offers?
Answer: After you’ve uploaded your college financial aid offers, you will be able to return to your list of “Financial Aid Offers” and see the full list of colleges, net price, and total debt information. You will be able to clearly see net price and total debt vs other schools here.
If you are ready to use the Financial Aid Comparison Tool but still have questions, watch this recorded demonstration where one of our experts will walk you through step by step.
