Every dollar amount, rate, limit and deadline on this site is recorded with the source it came from and the date somebody last checked it. Nothing is written from memory. This page explains exactly how that works, including what happens when we cannot verify something.
Why this page exists
There is no professional credential for knowing how federal student aid works. Nobody is licensed in it. So instead of asking you to trust a qualification, we are telling you precisely how our figures are produced, and giving you the sources to check any of them yourself.
This matters more here than it would on most sites. On 1 July 2026 the federal student aid system changed substantially, and a great deal of published advice — including advice on well-known sites — still describes the previous rules as though they were current. Much of it is not wrong so much as out of date, which is harder to spot.
The one thing to understand about our numbers
Since 1 July 2026, many federal figures have two correct answers at the same time.
Which one applies to you depends on when your loans were first disbursed. A parent who borrowed in 2024 and a parent borrowing now are under different rules, with different limits and different repayment options. Neither is an old figure and a new figure. Both are current, for different people.
Where that is the case, we show both, side by side, labelled with who each one applies to. You will see a small divided mark next to these figures. One side filled means the current rules; the other side means the rules that still govern loans taken out before that date. The mark is never a judgement — a borrower under the earlier rules has not made a mistake.
If you ever see a single figure quoted from this site without that context — in a search result summary, an AI answer, or somebody else’s article — treat it with suspicion until you have checked which group it applies to.
Where our figures come from
We use three tiers of source, and we record which tier every figure came from.
Federal sources
Almost everything on the money side of this site comes from here: the Department of Education, Federal Student Aid and its Dear Colleague Letters and Electronic Announcements, the Internal Revenue Service, the Federal Register and the electronic Code of Federal Regulations. These are the bodies that set the figures. Where a federal source exists, we use it and nothing else.
State sources
State grant programmes and 529 plans are run by states, so their figures come from the responsible state agency or the plan’s own official site.
Reputable press
Used only as a fallback where no primary source publishes a figure, and always labelled as such. If you see a large number of press-sourced figures on a page, that is a signal we have more work to do, not a signal that the figure is unreliable — but it is a meaningful difference and we would rather show it than hide it.
We do not source figures from companies that sell products in the categories we write about. Loan comparison sites, refinancing companies and scholarship search services all publish figures about programmes they profit from, and they are frequently wrong.
What each state of a figure means
- Checked. Sourced to a URL and dated. This is the only state in which a figure appears on the site at all.
- Not yet checked. We know the figure exists and have not verified it. It does not appear, and the sentence that would have contained it does not appear either.
- Disputed. Sources genuinely disagree, usually because a rule is mid-rulemaking. It does not appear, and we would rather say nothing than pick a side.
- Not applicable. The figure cannot exist — a grant has no interest rate. Recorded explicitly, because “we have not checked” and “this does not exist” are different statements and collapsing them produces nonsense.
What happens when we cannot verify something
The sentence is removed. Not estimated, not rounded, not replaced with “approximately”. If we cannot stand behind a number we do not print a softer version of it.
This occasionally means an article is shorter than it might be, or explains what a figure depends on rather than stating it. That is the trade we have chosen.
How often we re-check
Federal student aid runs on a calendar, so our re-checks follow it rather than an arbitrary interval:
- 1 July — the award year turns over and interest rates reset. Everything rate-related and award-related is re-checked here.
- When the FAFSA cycle opens — application figures, deadlines and eligibility rules.
- Annually, in line with IRS inflation adjustments — education tax credits and their income phase-outs.
A figure that is overdue for its re-check is treated as unverified and stops appearing until somebody checks it. The site would rather show you less than show you something stale.
How our articles are drafted
We use AI assistance to draft. We are saying so plainly because a number of sites in this space do the same thing and do not.
What matters is what the drafting process is not permitted to do. It cannot write a number — every figure is inserted from our checked records, and a draft that references a figure we have not verified has that passage removed before publication rather than published with an invented value. It cannot state one side of a split figure as though it were the whole answer. And on the school and family side of the site, it cannot tell you anything about your own child.
Every page is reviewed by a person before it is published. The editorial policy sets out the rest.
If you think something is wrong
Tell us. Corrections to published figures are the single most useful thing anyone sends us, and we would much rather hear it from you than leave it up.
This applies particularly if you work for a school, a state agency, a plan administrator or a federal office and we have described something you administer incorrectly. You will know before we do. Write to us at our contact page and point us at the source — we will correct it and update the checked date.