CFPB Hears from Students About New Financial Aid Disclosure

WASHINGTON — When weighing financial-aid offers, among students' concerns are how much debt they will have at graduation and how much they will owe in loan payments each month.

That was the feedback released Friday by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which has asked students, parents and educators to comment on its proposal for a streamlined financial aid disclosure.

The bureau released a prototype in October with the Department of Education for the so-called financial aid shopping sheet that a college would provide to prospective students about loan payments and other financial aid sources. In just a few days, the bureau said more than 22,000 people visited its website for more information.

Other feedback included that students wanted to know the track record at their particular school of financial-aid recipients being able to repay their loans.

The bureau is seeking additional feedback to help improve the shopping sheet, and is asking students and parents to rank items in the disclosure in order of usefulness.

The shopping sheet would provide students with a breakdown of their actual costs over the course of a year; how those costs compare to the costs for an average student at that school, as well as at a public college versus private college; and how much the student will owe each month after graduation.