There’s a practice in higher education of sending out letters — acceptance letters and rejection letters too. But perhaps the most important one of all is the financial aid letter. This includes all of the grants and scholarships that a student is eligible for, ostensibly providing an idea of what it would cost to attend a particular school. But more than 90% of American colleges either don’t supply the final price in those letters or understate it, according to a report out earlier this week from the Government Accountability Office.

Twenty-year-old Tyler Sanchez wants his financial aid letter to be plain and direct. 

“And say, ‘pay us on this date, at this time,’ ” he said.

Sanchez is in his third year at Macalester College, a private liberal arts college in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He’s studying in Prague in the spring, and just received a revised financial aid offer that doesn’t say exactly what he’ll owe this year.

Sanchez’s dad helps him pay for school, and Sanchez helps him interpret the charges.

“I don’t think this is going to happen, but if my spring semester for study abroad is an insane amount of money, and then my dad says, ‘I cannot pay this,’ then I’m kind of screwed,” he said.

Macalester said in a statement that college financing is complicated, and it makes staff available to help students navigate the process. 

Meanwhile, for prospective students who are deciding between schools, it can be hard to compare price tags.

“If you think about other financial products — mortgages or credit cards — there are standard disclosures that are provided to consumers,” said Melissa Emrey-Arras with the Government Accountability Office, and an author of the report. 

Part of the challenge is there are two kinds of costs. Direct costs are what the college charges the student for, like tuition, housing and a meal plan with unlimited pumpernickel bagels.

“Even estimating the actual direct cost is difficult,” said Jon Boeckenstedt, vice provost of Enrollment Management at Oregon State University. “A student here might register for 12 credits in their first term or might register for 15, and those have different costs associated with them.”

And then there are the indirect costs that the school won’t pay for, like flights home and personal expenses, which can vary a lot by student (depending on how many copies of “Infinite Jest” you buy.)

Merging those direct and indirect costs can get confusing for families, said Shannon Amundson, director of financial aid at Colorado College.

“We don’t want students to assume we’re going to bill them for transportation and buy them tickets home. That’s not going to happen,” Amundson said.

Another challenge is that some colleges use these letters as marketing documents, said Jon Fansmith with the American Council on Education.

“They present the information in a way that highlights aid a student might be receiving or minimizes the costs they may be facing, because they want to make an attractive offer to students,” he said.