New legislation looks to hold colleges more accountable for misleading financial aid information

With partisan politics playing a greater role on Capitol Hill than ever before, its surprising to many pundits that members of Congress from both parties are rallying together in support of the Understanding the True Cost of College Act.

The act was proposed earlier in the year with cosponsors from both sides of the aisle pushing hard to pass stricter punishment for colleges that mislead applicants regarding tuition fees.

Senators Al Franken, a Democrat from Minnesota, and Charles Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, have each spoken in front of Congress in an attempt to motivate the Senate to take swift action in making the bill a law.

The bill's new initiatives include:

• Penalties for colleges that use language on their financial aid websites that insinuates that a government loan is similar to a scholarship and that repayment isn't always required

• Requirements that schools send out a standard financial aid award letter to students once they get accepted so that the applicant can compare the aid package to offers from other colleges

• Stricter punishments for schools that guarantee students will receive jobs with adequate salaries upon graduation.

Currently, many schools will only inform students about financial aid awards after they have agreed to enroll.

This legislation would potentially allocate government funding to schools that work to lower tuition payments for students while producing graduates with a better chance of getting jobs in their chosen field. This is intended to help reverse current trends, where tuition steadily increases at many major colleges every year while the jobless rate remains stagnant.

For students who aren't sure how they will be able to go about paying for college, the financial aid consultants at College Financing Group have the knowledge and experience to help map out a plan that can make higher education more affordable.