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College Financing Plan to replace Financial Aid Shopping Sheet
January 17, 2019
If your financial aid office likes to be one of the early adopters and does not mind making some changes to your process for the 2019-2020 awards, then you may want to be one of the first schools to try out the new College Financing Plan.
The Department of Education (ED) announced the College Financing Plan in a January 17 Electronic Announcement. Included in the Electronic Announcement were the components needed for schools to create their own College Financing Plan, which will replace the Financial Aid Shopping Sheet.
In the announcement, the Department said they are changing the name of the template from the Financial Aid Shopping Sheet to College Financing Plan to more accurately reflect that loans may be a significant part of the student's investment and to emphasize to students that they are making a financial transaction when enrolling in an institution.
The Department introduced the College Financing Plan template this year as part of a beta testing protocol. It is not a requirement yet to use the new template but the Department would like some schools to use it this year and provide feedback before the final version of the plan is rolled out next year.