In July 2012, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) released the College Financing Plan (formerly known as the Financial Aid Shopping Sheet) format and asked institutions to voluntarily commit to using the College Financing Plan to supply financial aid information to students in a way that can be understood and compared easily.
Last year, the Department released both a traditional template and a Responsive Preview, with features and improvements we wanted to test and on which we sought feedback. Working with the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA), we have received valuable input from financial aid administrators, students, parents, and other stakeholders that we have used to make improvements to last year’s Responsive Preview in order to finalize a single template for 2020-2021. We have also reviewed the NASFAA report No Clear Winner: Consumer Testing of Financial Aid Award Letters.
As a result, we kept many of the features of the Responsive Preview, while making other improvements based on feedback. For the final 2020-2021 version, the Department: