{"id":7670,"date":"2018-07-26T11:15:12","date_gmt":"2018-07-26T17:15:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.petersons.com\/blog\/?p=7670"},"modified":"2018-08-31T08:10:52","modified_gmt":"2018-08-31T14:10:52","slug":"analyzing-college-costs-managing-minutia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.petersons.com\/blog\/analyzing-college-costs-managing-minutia\/","title":{"rendered":"Analyzing College Costs: Managing the Minutia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Let\u2019s be honest: The burden of student loans can be a lot for students to wrap their heads around. That means that actually analyzing college costs can feel impossible for a lot of high school students sizing up higher education.<\/p>\n<p>Don\u2019t believe me? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.brookings.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Are-College-Students-Borrowing-Blindly_Dec-2014.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">In a recent study<\/a>, students were asked to estimate how much federal debt they were carrying. On one end of the spectrum, a tiny sliver of the surveyed students underestimated their debt by $10,000 or more.<\/p>\n<p>And I get it: $10k is A LOT, and it\u2019d be hard to be that far off from your perception of how much one has borrowed in student loans.<\/p>\n<p>That is, unless you ask the students who overestimated how much they owe. On the other side of the chart, around 5 percent of students overestimated their level of student debt by $10,000 or more. The reality of loans is hard for a lot of students to wrap their heads around, so they just assume the worst.<\/p>\n<p>But it\u2019s not all \u2018good news\u2019 in terms of guessing how much money students owe. The largest segment of students surveyed (more than 15 percent) actually underestimated how much they owed by $5000-$6000. Another chunk of students (nearly 4 percent) underestimated their debt by $9000-$10,000.<\/p>\n<h2>How to Start Analyzing College Costs<\/h2>\n<p>So what\u2019s that mean? Students have a hard time keeping track of their debt. And for some it may be worrying about money they don\u2019t owe, but others are getting themselves into a bigger hole than they realize. The good news is that with a little education, and an understanding of the \u2018true cost of college,\u2019 you can empower yourself to make smart decisions with your education.<\/p>\n<p>Start with the infographic below, and follow-along with our three-step guide to figuring out some of the details that others may gloss over when explaining how this whole \u2018paying for college\u2019 thing goes. Look for terms and information that stands out, and search <a href=\"https:\/\/www.petersons.com\/blog\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">our blog<\/a> for terms and concepts you may not understand.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"infobox\" href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.petersons.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/10124048\/origination-infographic-FINAL.pdf\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"infopic\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.petersons.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/10124049\/origination-infographic-FINAL.png\" alt=\"infographic\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Let\u2019s be honest: The burden of student loans can be a lot for students to wrap their heads around. That means that actually analyzing college costs can feel impossible for a lot of high school students sizing up higher education. Don\u2019t believe me? In a recent study, students were asked to estimate how much federal<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7671,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[721,427],"class_list":{"0":"post-7670","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scholarships","8":"tag-funding","9":"tag-undergraduate"},"better_featured_image":{"id":7671,"alt_text":"","caption":"","description":"","media_type":"image","media_details":{},"post":7670,"source_url":"https:\/\/wp-media.petersons.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/10124050\/analyzing-costs.jpg"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Analyzing College Costs: Managing the Minutia - Peterson&#039;s<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Analyzing college costs isn&#039;t as easy as just thinking it through, so we made an infographic to help you understand a few key details.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.petersons.com\/blog\/analyzing-college-costs-managing-minutia\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Analyzing College Costs: Managing the Minutia - Peterson&#039;s\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Analyzing college costs isn&#039;t as easy as just thinking it through, so we made an infographic to help you understand a few key details.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.petersons.com\/blog\/analyzing-college-costs-managing-minutia\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Peterson&#039;s\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/petersons\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-07-26T17:15:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-08-31T14:10:52+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.petersons.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/10124050\/analyzing-costs.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Staff Writer\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@Petersons\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Petersons\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Staff Writer\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Analyzing College Costs: Managing the Minutia - 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