When Susan Romano first read her son Zach’s financial aid letter from Drexel University, a private college in Philadelphia, her eyes immediately jumped to the line highlighted in yellow: “$13,442 expected payment” for the first year at the $63,000-a-year school.
“At first, I thought it was great,” says Romano, an insurance claims representative from Huntingdon, Pa. “The more I read it over and over, the worse it got.”
It turned out the college’s “offered financial aid” included $42,000 in loans to be taken out by the family.
“A loan to me is not financial aid,” says Romano. “It is money I have to pay.”