Why is it so difficult to figure out how much you’re going to pay for college

“… Perhaps most problematic is the rampant jargon and confusing language in the letters. For example, uAspire and New America found 454 letters that offered ‘Federal Direct Unsubsidized Loans’— loans that have interest accumulating while a student is in school. Even though federal loans are common to every school, the groups found 143 unique titles for how the loans appeared in financial aid offers.” …

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2018/01/19/why-is-it-so-difficult-to-figure-out-how-much-youre-going-to-pay-for-college/?utm_term=.c8f00766d003

Yup. Which is why I recommend that students run their aid offers through the Award Letter calculator from FinAid.org

http://www.finaid.org/calculators/awardletter.phtml