The financial aid offer you get now might not be the same next year.

Reuters reports.

College freshmen need to beware of bait-and-switch aid offers

(Reuters) – Families receiving college financial aid offers this spring should beware: what they see this year may not be what they get next year.

Some colleges make their most generous offers to high school seniors as a lure to attend, a practice known as “front-loading.”

But those returning for their sophomore and subsequent years at university may get thousands of dollars less in grants and scholarships than they did as freshmen. Often, the free money is replaced by student loans.

About half of all colleges front-load their grants, according to financial aid expert Mark Kantrowitz, who analyzed data from the National Center for Education Statistic’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System.

“Colleges practice front-loading because it is cheaper to have higher grants during the first year, when it affects enrollment, than during all four years,” said Kantrowitz, publisher of Edvisors.com, an education resource site. “Effectively, it is a form of bait and switch.”

College administrators, however, balk at that label and at the idea that front-loading is common.