How to read a college award letter, and when to appeal it

Award letters arrive in the spring, and most families read them the way colleges hope they will: the big number at the top. You are right to read them more carefully. In a 2022 report, the U.S. Government Accountability Office estimated that 91 percent of colleges left out or understated the net price in their aid offers (GAO (opens in a new tab)). Here is how to read one honestly, compare offers fairly, and decide whether an appeal is worth making.

Step 1: Sort every line into free, earned and borrowed money

Award letters mix very different things together, sometimes under one heading like "Your aid package."

• Free money: grants and scholarships. You don’t pay these back.
• Earned money: work-study. Your student has to find a campus job and work the hours; it is paid as wages during the year, not taken off the bill up front.
• Borrowed money: every loan. Federal student loans are in the student’s name. Parent PLUS loans are in the parent’s name, and some letters list them as if they were aid. They are not. A loan is a loan, whatever the letter calls it.

Add up only the free money. That is the real discount.

Step 2: Find the real price

Take the college’s full cost of attendance (tuition, fees, housing, food and the other costs it publishes) and subtract only the grants and scholarships. What is left is your family’s real price for the year, however it gets paid: savings, income, work or loans.

Then check the terms:

• Is each scholarship renewable, and what does renewal require: a GPA, a number of credits each year, staying in a major? A generous first-year award that ends after one year isn’t the same as a four-year award.
• Is the cost of attendance complete? Some letters leave out housing, food or travel, which makes the price look smaller than it is.
• Is any of the free money from outside the college? An outside scholarship can lower the college’s own aid; ask how each college treats one.

Step 3: Compare offers on the same terms

Line the colleges up side by side in the same columns: cost of attendance, free money, real price, and what renewal requires. Differences that looked large in the letters often shrink, or flip, once the loans come out. Multiply the real price by the number of years the degree usually takes at that college, not just one.

Step 4: Decide whether to appeal

An appeal is a polite, specific request for the college to look again. It works best with a concrete reason:

• A change in your family’s finances that the forms didn’t capture: a job loss, medical costs, a death or a divorce, or a one-time jump in income that won’t repeat. Financial aid offices can adjust for special circumstances; studentaid.gov (opens in a new tab) explains how this works for federal aid, and each college has its own process for its own money.
• A better offer from a comparable college. Some colleges will review a competing offer, especially from a college they see as a peer. Others won’t, and their financial aid pages usually say so.
• An error in the information the college used.

Appeals are less likely to work when the only reason is "we hoped for more." Merit scholarships set by a published grid of GPA and scores rarely move; need-based aid is where most appeals succeed.

Step 5: Write it in your own voice

A good appeal letter is short and specific:

1. Thank them, and say your student wants to attend.
2. State the reason plainly, with the facts: the competing offer, or what changed and when.
3. Ask a specific question: would they be able to review the award?
4. Attach the documents that show it.

Write it as yourself. Financial aid officers read many appeals, and a plain, honest letter from a real parent stands out more than a polished template.

Each college has its own appeal process. Look for "appeal," "special circumstances" or "professional judgment" on its financial aid site, and follow its instructions exactly.

Keep the deadlines in view

Most colleges ask admitted students to decide and pay a deposit by a published date at the start of May. Ask about appeal timing as soon as the letter arrives, so you are not choosing before the answer comes, and check each date on the college’s own site. If an answer won’t come in time, ask the college whether it can extend your reply date.

What to do before you sign anything

• Accept the grants and scholarships.
• Accept work-study only if your student plans to work.
• Accept loans one at a time, for only what you have decided to borrow. You can usually decline or reduce a loan without losing the rest of the offer.

For families earlier in high school

The appeal is the end of the story. The beginning is a list where the real prices were checked before anyone applied: each college’s published numbers, at your student’s actual GPA and scores. The senior-year checklist shows where the award letters fit in the year.