CampusPin Q&A
How do I compare financial aid offers?
Short answerConvert every offer to the same number: net price — the total cost of attendance minus only the grants and scholarships you don’t repay (not loans or work-study). The offer with the lowest net price is the most affordable, no matter how large the total “aid package” looks.
Award letters are notoriously hard to compare because they aren’t standardized. Some bundle loans and work-study into the “total aid” figure, which makes an expensive school look generous. The fix is to strip each offer down to two numbers: the full cost of attendance (tuition, fees, housing, food, books, and personal expenses) and the gift aid (grants and scholarships you never pay back). Cost of attendance minus gift aid is your net price — the real out-of-pocket figure for that year.
Watch for a few traps. Loans and work-study are not discounts — they’re money you repay or earn. Some scholarships are one-year-only, so a low first-year net price can jump in year two. And letters sometimes omit parts of the cost of attendance, which understates the true number. Compare like for like across all four years where you can.
CampusPin’s aid letter analyzer puts up to four offers side by side and standardizes them to net price. It runs entirely in your browser and does not store or transmit anything you paste — the math stays on your device. For details specific to your family, use each school’s required Net Price Calculator and confirm the figures with its financial-aid office.
How to do it
- Gather each offer and find its full cost of attendance (COA).
- Identify only the gift aid — grants and scholarships you don’t repay.
- Subtract gift aid from COA to get each school’s net price.
- Compare net prices; use /tools/aid-letter-analyzer to standardize up to four offers at once.
- Check whether any scholarship is one-year-only, then verify final numbers with each financial-aid office.
Verify with the institution. CampusPin supplements but does not replace official admissions, financial-aid, or registrar offices. Always confirm final details with the college directly before deciding.
Helpful next steps
Related questions
What is the difference between net price and sticker price?
Sticker price is a college’s full published cost of attendance before any aid. Net price is what a family actually pays after grants and scholarships are subtracted. Net price is the number to compare between schools — sticker price routinely overstates what most students pay.
What is the difference between tuition and total cost of attendance?
Tuition is just the published instructional charge for a year. Total cost of attendance (COA) is tuition plus mandatory fees, room and board, books, transportation, and personal expenses — the all-in price before any financial aid.
How do I find affordable colleges?
On /results, set the tuition filter to a manual maximum (CampusPin supports up to $100,000) and include public and community colleges. Always compare net price (what families actually pay after aid) rather than sticker price.
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