“Know Before You Owe”
Has College Leaders Committed to Providing Prospective Students with Key
Financial Information
Washington, DC – State
University of New York Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher today joined Vice President
Joe Biden in announcing that SUNY is among the first universities in the nation
to embrace the Obama administration’s new “Know Before
You Owe” financial aid transparency initiative.
The announcement marks the
launch of the Financial Aid
Shopping Sheet, which will provide prospective students with the type and
amount of financial aid they qualify for, and easily compare for them the aid
packages offered by different institutions.
“President Obama and his
administration have shown a clear commitment to ensuring that every American
has access to a college education that they can afford,” said Chancellor
Zimpher. “It has been a great privilege to partner with the administration as
it seeks to put all of our country’s colleges and universities on a path toward
providing students with a complete and comparable college costs outlook and
giving them the tools they need to make informed decisions about where to
attend college and how to pay for it.”
Chancellor Zimpher and Vice
President Biden were later joined by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan,
Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Richard Cordray, Domestic Policy Council Director Cecilia Muñoz, and nine other college presidents for a roundtable
discussion around the topics at hand.
Each of the colleges
represented at today’s meeting have committed to providing the following
information in one easy-to-understand place, to all incoming students as part
of their financial aid package, beginning with the 2013-2014 school year:
- How much one year of college
will cost;
- Financial aid options to pay
this cost, with a clear differentiation between grants and scholarships,
which do not have to be repaid, and loans, which do;
- Net costs after grants and
scholarships are taken into account;
- Estimated monthly payments for
the federal student loans the student would likely owe after graduation;
and
- Vital information about student
results, including comparative information about the rates at which
students enroll from one year to the next, graduate, and repay their loans
without defaulting on their obligations.
Chancellor Zimpher added,
“Just as SUNY readily adopted the administration’s Net Price Calculator, which
gives students a more accurate snapshot of their unique financial situation,
our 64 colleges and universities are proud to be among the first in the country
to embrace the shopping sheet. I commend President Obama and his administration
on making this tool available. It is truly a step in the right direction.”
In addition to SUNY, college
leaders from the following institutions attended today’s
meeting: Arizona State University; Miami Dade College; North Carolina
Agricultural & Technical State University; Syracuse University; University
of Massachusetts System; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill;
University System of Maryland; University of Texas System; Vassar College.
About the State University of New York
The State University of New
York is the largest comprehensive university system in the United States,
educating nearly 468,000 students in more than 7,500 degree and certificate
programs on 64 campuses with more than 3 million alumni around the
globe. To learn more about how SUNY creates opportunity, visit www.suny.edu
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