How much will I pay for college? Financial aid offers are very confusing

May 1 is college decision day for students who hope to earn a bachelor's degree. Many will decide based on affordability: Including financial aid, which college is the best value?

Yet, financial aid letters can make it hard to figure out the final cost, writes Hechinger's Meredith Kolodner. College-access advocates "have been lobbying for a bill in Congress that would require all colleges to use the same, clearly labeled, standard form — kind of like nutrition labels on food — so families could accurately compare offers," she writes. "But college associations and others have worked to block it."

Eighteen-year-olds and their parents are making very big decisions based on confusing and sometimes misleading information. Many do not have the financial savvy to evaluate the trade-offs.

Nearly half of 2026 high school graduates will go on to a four-year college or university, according to a new NerdWallet report, reports Jessica Dickler for CNBC. More than a million will take out student loans that will lead to $43,000 in debt, on average, by graduation.

Whether that's worth it depends on whether borrowers actually complete a degree -- many do not -- and whether they major in engineering or theater arts.

Americans now hold $1.7 trillion in federal student loans. Trump's "big beautiful bill” has cut repayment options and set stricter rules for debt forgiveness.  "New borrowers will have a total lifetime limit of $257,500 for all federal student loans," writes Dickler.

Cato's Andrew Gillen identifies "policies that would save more than $265 billion over the next 10 years, including eliminating subsidized loans, eliminating or capping Public Service Loan Forgiveness, modifying the Repayment Assistance Plan, phasing out campus-based aid, repealing ineffective tax expenditures, and benchmarking research overhead rates."