YourVoice.Now Summary
Your MoneyTransparency & AccountabilityFrom July 2029, every college aid letter would look the same, listing each loan and what you would still owe.
Your Money
Starting July 1, 2029, colleges that take federal student aid must use one standard offer form. It must show your yearly costs, grants, loans, and the price you would actually pay after aid.
Each offer must also show what students in that same program paid on average last year. It must show the average total cost to finish, based on how long students really took.
Grants and loans can’t be lumped into one total on the form. Loans must be called loans, and the two federal loan types must be shown apart.
Some colleges send aid offers online and ask you to confirm you got them. Under this bill, that click could not be treated as saying yes or no to the offer.
The bill makes colleges figure school costs by program of study, not for the whole school. That figure sets how much aid you can get, so it may rise or fall for your program.
Transparency & Accountability
Starting July 1, 2029, the Department must pull a random sample of real aid offers every other year. It must check them against the new rules.
Colleges sign an agreement with the government to take part in federal student aid. This bill adds the new form rules to that agreement.
The bill waives one law for this testing: the Paperwork Reduction Act. That law usually calls for a public notice and a chance to comment first.
More about this bill
College financial aid letters would follow one national format starting July 1, 2029. Each offer would have to show your yearly costs, your grants, and each loan you are offered. It would list the interest rate and fees on every loan. It would also show your net price, or what you would still owe after grants and scholarships. Colleges could not add grants and loans into one total. The word “loan” would have to appear next to loan amounts. Offers would also show what students in the same program paid last year, on average. That includes the average total cost to finish, based on how long students really took. Colleges would have to say whether an outside scholarship shrinks your aid package. If an offer arrives online, clicking to confirm you got it could not count as accepting it. The Department of Education would build the format first, testing it with students, families, counselors, and lenders. It would publish the rules by July 1, 2028. Every other year after 2029, it would pull a random sample of real offers and check them. Colleges would also figure the cost of attending program by program, not school-wide. That number sets how much aid you can get.
Congressional Summary
This bill requires the Department of Education (ED) to develop, and for institutions of higher education (IHEs) to use, a standardized, consumer-tested format for all financial aid offers.Any financial aid offer must include specified details and disclosures, including (1) cost information (e.g., cost of attendance and net price); (2) disclosures related to loans (e.g., applicable interest rates); (3) information on student employment opportunities; and (4) next steps for accepting, adjusting, or declining financial aid.Each IHE that participates in federal student aid programs must (1) include the required information for all financial aid offers (including paper, mobile, or electronic offers), (2) provide supplemental content and disclosures (e.g., requirements for renewing financial aid), and (3) use consistent terminology for all communications related to financial aid offers.
Legislative Subjects
Details
- Congress
- 119th
- Chamber
- House
- Status
- summarized
- Action
- Placed on the Union Calendar, Calendar No. 394.
- Action Date
- 2026-01-21
- Date Added
- 2026-04-10
- Source
- Congress.gov →
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