The Obama administration and 10 private colleges and state university systems are getting a jump start on improving transparency about the cost of college, including loans and options to repay them.
The meeting will be led by Vice President Joe Biden who will meet with university and college presidents on Tuesday, according to Reuters.
With college loan debt hovering around $1 trillion and interest rates on such loans set to double to 6.8 percent on July 1, the change would add significantly new costs over time for many students already pinched by steadily rising education expenses.
Student loans are the largest component of household debt after mortgages. They rose 3.4 percent to $904 billion in the first quarter of this year compared with the final three months of 2011, the New York Federal Reserve Bank said in a report last week.
At the meeting, each higher education official is expected to commit to several measures for incoming students as part of the financial aid package beginning with the 2013-14 school year, including information about hidden costs for college and options for meeting those costs.
The schools will lay out examples of payments due for federal student loans after graduation and information about default rates.
Participants include Arizona State University, Miami Dade College, North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University, the State University System of New York, Syracuse University in New York, the University of Massachusetts System, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University System of Maryland, the University of Texas System, and Vassar College in New York.
