By joining the College Cost Transparency Initiative, Reed is helping make college costs easier to understand for prospective students and their families.
August 3, 2026
Press Release
PORTLAND, OR — Reed College has joined the College Cost Transparency Initiative (CCT), a nationwide effort to help students and families better understand the cost of higher education and the financial aid available to them.
As a member of the initiative, Reed reinforces its longstanding commitment to making higher education more accessible by providing clear, accurate, and easy-to-understand information about college costs and financial aid. More than 720 colleges and universities have voluntarily joined the initiative, pledging to follow a shared set of principles and standards designed to improve the transparency and consistency of financial aid communications. Collectively, participating institutions serve nearly 7 million students across all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and Guam.
“Choosing a college is one of the most important decisions a student and family will make, and they deserve clear, straightforward information about the financial commitment involved,” said Reed College President Audrey Bilger. “By joining the College Cost Transparency Initiative, Reed is reaffirming our commitment to ensuring students have the information they need to make informed decisions with confidence. Transparency is an essential part of expanding access and helping students focus on finding the college that is the right fit for them.”
Established in 2022 by the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA), the American Council on Education (ACE), and eight other higher education associations, the College Cost Transparency Initiative brings together campus leaders and financial aid professionals to promote common standards for financial aid offers. By encouraging consistent terminology and presentation, the initiative helps students and families compare financial aid packages across institutions and make more informed enrollment decisions.
“Students and families need upfront, accurate, and clear information when making decisions about college,” said ACE President Ted Mitchell. “It’s important to have standard terminology and clear requirements on what is to be included in financial aid offers. When institutions do this, they uphold their responsibility to be explicit about an education’s cost and value. This is an opportunity for them to lead and make a difference.”
Managed by NASFAA, the initiative seeks to improve families' ability to plan for college expenses while helping students better understand borrowing options and reduce unnecessary loan debt.
“Understanding the cost of college is one of the most critical steps in helping students and families make informed, confident decisions about their educational futures,” said Melanie Storey, president and CEO of NASFAA. “If this project has shown us anything, it’s that this work is complex, but can be accomplished when institutional leaders and practitioners make cost transparency a priority. By joining this initiative, institutions demonstrate their dedication to transparency and ensuring that students have a clear understanding of the financial commitments associated with their college education.”
As part of their commitment, CCT member institutions agree to make college cost information readily available and comparable for prospective students and families. Under the initiative's principles and standards, undergraduate financial aid offers should:
- Present clear, transparent estimates of college costs using the most accurate information available.
- Explain each type of financial aid using consistent, plain-language terminology.
- Clearly identify key information, including estimated total cost of attendance; costs billed directly by the institution and estimated indirect expenses; grants and scholarships, student loans, and work-study or other employment opportunities; estimated net price; and requirements for renewing financial aid.
- Include information about employment expectations and job placement when student employment is part of the financial aid offer.
- Explain the terms, conditions, and long-term costs of federal student loans when those loans are included in a student's aid package.
About the College Cost Transparency Initiative
In the fall of 2022, the leaders of 10 higher education associations representing college presidents, financial aid offices, and admissions and school counselors announced the formation of a task force—the College Cost Transparency Initiative (CCT)—to tackle the issue of college cost transparency by improving the clarity, accuracy, and understanding of student financial aid offers. The task force developed a set of principles and standards to be used when developing aid offers with broad consultation and recommendations from the higher education community.
The organizations represented on the College Cost Transparency Initiative task force are as follows: the American Council on Education (ACE), the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC), the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU), the Association of American Universities (AAU), the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU), the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC), the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU), the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA), the National Association of Higher Education Systems (NASH), and the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO).
For more information, contact:
Sheena McFarland, Chief Communications Officer, Reed College smcfarland@reed.edu; Cell: 801-510-5567
About Reed College
Founded in 1908 in southeast Portland, Oregon, Reed College is a coeducational, independent liberal arts and sciences college. Referred to as one of the most intellectual colleges in the country, Reed is known for its high standards of scholarly practice, creative thinking, and engaged citizenship.
Reed College is devoted to the intrinsic value of intellectual pursuit and is governed by the highest standards of scholarly practice, critical thought, and creativity. Its undergraduate program of study, leading to the degree of Bachelor of Arts, is demanding and intense and balances breadth of knowledge across the curriculum with depth of knowledge in a particular field of study. The goal of a Reed education is that students learn and demonstrate rigor and independence in their habits of thought, inquiry, and expression.