The discussion highlights the critical need for transparency and accurate information regarding the true costs of higher education, emphasizing that current financial aid offers are often misleading, leading to poor decision-making for students and parents.
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No douf.
>> Thank you, chairman, uh very much uh for
yielding and especially for holding this
hearing and to chairman Wahlberg. This
is an incredibly
important question to virtually every
family in the United States. The first
question is what do you want to do when
you grow up? Which turns into
whether it's 9th, 10th, 11th grade, are
you going to college?
with the assumption is that's the first
and best and only answer in so many
ways. Do you want to go to college?
Well, the fact of the matter is, you
know, for every parent having that
discussion with their child is, do you
want to go to college? Do you want to
serve your nation and go into the
military or do you want to go to a trade
school? Because at the end of the day,
whether it's college, military, it's
what is your career? What is going to be
your job? Uh, student loans, I say it
all the time, is one of the greatest
things we ever done and one of the worst
things we've ever done because for
parents who care so much about their
children, they want to do what's right
by them
to pay $80,000 to go to college for one year.
year.
First of all, let's back up.
We talk about like every child knows I
want to go to college and this is what I
want to do. I would love to see the
statistics of asking that child what job
or career that they're going for and
where do they end up if we hit 5050. I
would be surprised and this is the
reason I'm bringing this up is having
that discussion with the parents and the
child of what the true costs are is
incredibly important. Nobody has
mentioned community college is this what
I want to do because that is the most
affordable accessible for any child and
then move into a fouryear and go on. But
the idea that so often they want to
chase that uh picture that they see it's
a great sports team and listen we just
came off a great weekend of watching
sports for college football and how many
children pick those schools simply
because of the academic program or the
sports programs. So true cost is such
relevant issue. Earlier in your
testimony, you talked about the net cost.
cost.
When you just talked about the funding
for higher education, you said it went
up. Of course, it does. Everybody raises
it. But what is the true cost against
inflation? That would absolutely change
it. So, a having the right information,
calling it the right thing, that
terminology is so important. We can do
this and I am very much uh focused on
that. uh the terminology
and the basic costs for a college
you talked about repeatedly there are
you can buy the Chevy or you can buy the
Cadillac and we need to address those
issues to go through the school and the
idea of saying there should be a cost
guarantee if it's two-year college your
cost there so we we're having a great discussion
discussion
uh for something that ends up being the
biggest decision in many people's life
other than getting married and having
children. This is so important that we
consider what takes place at the time of
these decisions because it impacts the
parents who might have to help the child
and it certainly is going to impact that
child making that decision. So transparency,
transparency,
uh, Miss Lady, talk to me about when
this child and this parent are making a
decision, what goes into making that
decision that impacts are they actually
looking like, gee, to go there, it's
going to cost me a half a million
dollars to send you there for something
that you may or may not do. When we
talking about transparency and the
terminology also the decision making
what goes into that and the studies that
you've been part of. How do the parents
>> Ideally they should be making that
decision with really good information
and really good complete and honest
data. And right now they're not. And
just to be a little bit crude about it,
it's garbage in, garbage out in terms of
if you have really misleading
information that is on these financial
aid offers. Uh in our research, we have
found uh in addition to some of the
issues that I mentioned at the top,
there are colleges that will list loans
like parent plus loans and put them as
if they are gifts, as if they are awards
that they do not have to pay back. One
of my favorite and horrible examples is
there's a a college um there was a
letter that at the very bottom of it, it
had all of the the grants and loans and
things and at the very bottom of it, it
said, "Your out-ofpocket cost is zero,"
which is amazing. That's great. I don't
have to pay anything to go to college.
But in that letter, parent plus loans of
$27,000 were listed. Student loans were
listed, but they were like, "Pus, who
knows what Pus is? Do you know what P
you know what P plus is? Everybody in
this committee knows what P plus is, but
most people don't know what that is. And
that's because the the information is I
I I will disagree with my colleague
Justin here a little bit about whether
or not it's intentionally deceptive. I
think for some colleges it's not and I
think for some colleges it is because
it's this tool is both helping students
uh try to understand the cost of college
but it's a marketing tool for schools to
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