Deductibles

If you ever mention how many people don't apply for college financial aid because the forms are too complicated you'll inevitable get a response like "if it's too hard to fill out a form, you probably shouldn't be going to college."

The thing is, filling out financial aid forms and understanding health insurance really is difficult. One of my friends just graduated from MIT and he health insurance expires at the end of the month. She e-mailed me asking for help understanding how to get a plan and how they work, and when I helped her out she wrote this back:

I actually saw the MIT webpage link about what to do after graduation earlier, but when I clicked on all the links I got so confused by all the terms and timelines. This is so much clearer now that you broke it down for me, I'm not freaking out anymore!

[. . .] I think if I get really sick, getting my dad to send $6750 over shouldn't be a problem. For the longest time I was so confused when browsing the different insurance plans about the term 'deductible', I thought it was something to do with tax-deductible.

MIT students also struggle with filling out some financial aid forms. I helped out an international student who was confused about why they needed so much information from her parents back in Kenya, and how she was supposed to figure out what it was asking for, much less how to get the information!