College Financial Aid Award Videos That Explain the Offer

The direct answer: Make a financial-aid offer understandable at a glance, by showing how the institution's own numbers fit together.

Golpo is built to be the complete AI explainer workflow for that offer. Start from the reconciled award guide, the verification checklist, an approved script, or a financial-aid recording. Golpo drafts the narration in Prompt Mode, plans the scenes, and designs the visuals. Review the script before creating the video, then publish the explanation beside the live offer. The official offer and the student portal still govern. Golpo does not decide eligibility or tell a student whether to borrow.

This guide is for financial-aid offices, enrollment services, college-access programs, student-success teams, and university communications. The two renders below were produced in Prompt Mode from the documents linked beside them. The first shows how to read an offer. The second explains verification, which is a different job. The family version adds the institution's style, the actual offer page, and a reviewed language variant.

Read the offer, then complete verification

Keep these as two videos. The award explainer shows how the institution's figures fit together. The verification explainer shows which documents to send, how statuses move, and what a missed deadline does. Understanding an offer does not finish verification, and a verification video should not restate the award as if it were final.

Build this video entirely from the attached document. Title it: How to Read a Financial Aid Offer. Explain cost of attendance, direct charges, grants, work-study, loans, remaining estimate, and acceptance steps. Write the narration yourself from the attached document; no narration script is supplied. Do not introduce any fact, figure, date, name, instruction, policy, right, deadline, recommendation, promise, or outcome not in the document. Treat the people, institution, identifiers, and values as the document's own facts. Never call the document a sample, demo, fictional, synthetic, illustrative, or an example.

Build the arithmetic from top to bottom. Every dollar amount and label must match the offer. FIGURE LOCK: every number, date, time, code, fee, threshold, window, phone number, status, and identifier shown or spoken must come from the attached document. Do not invent placeholder values.

Build this video entirely from the attached document. Title it: Selected for Financial Aid Verification: What Now?. Explain requested documents, secure submission, statuses, correction handling, review windows, and consequences of missing deadlines. Write the narration yourself from the attached document; no narration script is supplied. Do not introduce any fact, figure, date, name, instruction, policy, right, deadline, recommendation, promise, or outcome not in the document. Treat the people, institution, identifiers, and values as the document's own facts. Never call the document a sample, demo, fictional, synthetic, illustrative, or an example.

VISUAL DIRECTION
Use the portal status sequence and exact checklist. Do not imply selection means wrongdoing or promise an award. FIGURE LOCK: every number, date, time, code, fee, threshold, window, phone number, status, and identifier shown or spoken must come from the attached document. Do not invent placeholder values.

How the specimen offer fits together

The award video was generated from the linked guide, which walks the figures from the bill down to what is left. The guide's own reconciliation, for its 2026–2027 revised offer, is the checklist to compare against the narration and the frames. These are the specimen figures in that PDF. A real office uses its reconciled current-year offer and does not reuse these amounts.

Net price in that guide is cost of attendance minus gift aid only: $28,358 − $14,870 = $13,488. Loans and work-study are not treated as discounts. The guide also says this revised offer replaces an April 2 offer after verification, so only the revised figures are current. Compare the video's spoken amounts and on-screen labels to this table before anyone publishes it. The figure-lock line in the production brief tells Golpo to take numbers from the attached document. It is not a mathematics check.

Scenes, the real offer, and the office's voice

The award render is the top-to-bottom reading of an offer. The verification render is the document workflow. The family version keeps those jobs separate, in the institution's visual language, with the reconciled offer itself on screen.

One scene per kind of money

Custom Scenes lets you move sentence boundaries so cost of attendance, billed costs, gift aid, loans, and work-study each get a scene, within the engine limit. That is what stops work-study from looking like a line that already reduced the bill. Custom Scenes does not rewrite the narration or prove the arithmetic. It is on Growth and higher plans.

The award render uses Sketch Infographics, which suits a figure walk. The verification render uses Canvas Editorial (Compact), which groups a checklist. Compact groups components; Expanded spreads them. Notebook is Compact-only. In the API, unsuffixed Canvas values select Expanded and _compact selects Compact.

Insert the reconciled offer

Own Media places the actual reconciled offer, or the page families will see in the portal, inside the explainer, on Business and higher plans. A generated table is not the offer. Use an authorized, appropriately limited image. Custom Style saves the institution's look from an image, a video, or a description under My Styles, on Business and higher plans, and reuses it on the award video and the verification video. It is not pixel-exact branding or exact typography.

Approved terms, then a label you can fix

Prompt Mode can draft narration from the reconciled guide. Approve it with Edit script before creating video. Use Script Mode when award terms must be spoken exactly, and put visual directions in Video Instructions. About 1,050 characters of narration fit in a selected minute. On-screen text from script only, on Canvas and Sketch, limits generated labels to that script and may show a subset. It is not a caption track, and it does not verify the math. In the API, set onscreen_text_from_script_only.

The first edited version is free across sessions until finalized. If a frame labels work-study as a credit on the bill, use frame editing on all paid plans. Later editing is charged on the selected duration of that version and does not change the narration. If the voice says the wrong amount, revise the script and generate again.

The aid office's voice, and a reviewed language version

Voice Clone saves an authorized financial-aid voice and narrates new scripts with it, on Business and higher plans. Get permission and check pronunciation of award names. Voice Instructions set pace and emphasis around the figures. They do not clone a counselor, and they do not change an Own Narration recording. Own Narration uses a finished recording to drive the visuals. The recording sets duration and spoken language.

Each language is its own render for families who need it. Creator and higher plans include multilingual output, and Starter has a language add-on. More than 45 languages are listed. A professional reviewer checks gift-aid terms, loan words, dates, and the cost-of-attendance versus bill distinction in that language. A language setting does not translate an Own Narration recording. In the API, language_variants requests those renders. See plan availability.

Workflow before the next award batch

1. Source. Reconcile one current award template before production. The linked guide is a synthetic demonstration, and its revised figures replace an earlier offer inside that document. Verification stays a second source and a second video.
2. Settings. Save the institution's style. Insert the reconciled offer with Own Media. Use Custom Scenes so cost of attendance, billed costs, gift aid, loans, and work-study are separate scenes. Add the aid office's authorized voice.
3. Script review. Let Golpo draft from the guide in Prompt Mode, or supply the approved sentences in Script Mode. Approve the narration before creating the video. Keep the office's refusal to recommend a borrowing amount in the spoken script.
4. Result. The award video on this page runs 1:55 in Sketch Infographics. The verification video runs 1:58 in Canvas Editorial (Compact). Compare both to their source documents. The offer-image version is the one to make for the live template.
5. One correction. Correct a wrong visual label with frame editing. Correct a wrong spoken dollar with a script revision and a new render.
6. One reuse. Render one professionally reviewed language version as its own video, with the same figures and the same style. When the aid year or the offer changes, generate again from the new reconciled document. Publishing and withdrawing the file stay in the institution's portal and web systems.

Plan, duration, and credits

A standard video, including Own Narration, uses 1 credit per selected minute. A 2-minute selection is 2 credits. These renders finished at 1:55 and 1:58, so confirm the duration you select. A later frame-edited version is charged again on the selected duration of that version. Prices are on the pricing page. You can download Golpo's free 1-minute video without a watermark for $9.99, or subscribe to download it at no extra charge.

• Custom Scenes: Growth and higher.
• Custom Style, Own Media, Voice Clone and Own Narration: Business and higher. Frame editing: all paid plans.
• Voice Instructions: Creator and higher.
• Language variants: Creator and higher, or the Starter language add-on. Each variant is its own render and its own credits.

The API can request a generation from an approved document and report status. Scale includes API access. Business has a paid API add-on. API Only is metered separately and does not include dashboard generation. Award posting, portal messages, and withdrawing a superseded offer video stay in the institution's systems. See the API docs.

Review once before you publish

• The official offer, the student account, and the written aid rules remain in control. Figures belong only to the document shown.
• Cost of attendance, the bill, gift aid, work-study, and loans are visually and verbally distinct. Work-study is not shown as money already taken off the bill.
• Every spoken amount and on-screen label matches the reconciled offer. Figure lock is a prompt instruction, not a check that the arithmetic is right.
• The video does not infer eligibility and does not recommend accepting, reducing, or declining a loan. Borrowing is not the success metric.
• Verification is explained without implying wrongdoing, and it stays a separate video from the award reading.
• A language version is reviewed by someone who can check the aid terms, and captions are verified in your player workflow.
• If a synthetic MP4 or PDF from this page is shared without the article, label it as a demonstration beside the player or in the download name.

Evidence and governing references

• Federal Student Aid: evaluating aid offers
• Federal Student Aid: how aid is calculated
• College Financing Plan

Frequently asked questions

Can the video recommend which loans to accept?

No. It explains the institution's document and the actions available. It does not give individualized borrowing advice, and accepting a loan is not the outcome the video is aiming for.

Is work-study deducted from the bill?

In the linked award guide, work-study is earned as wages. Nothing from that line posts to the student account unless the student works, and unearned hours are worth nothing. Follow the current offer if its treatment differs.

Can the award change?

Yes. The current official offer and portal always control. The linked guide itself replaces an earlier offer after verification.

Does verification mean the student did something wrong?

No. The verification video explains the institution's documented process without implying wrongdoing. It is a separate explanation from how to read the offer.

How do we prevent arithmetic errors?

Reconcile the offer first. The figure-lock line tells Golpo to use the document's numbers. It does not check the math. Compare every spoken amount and on-screen label with the reconciled offer. Fix a wrong label with frame editing. Fix a wrong spoken amount by revising the script and generating again.

Related guides

• University Admissions Videos From Application Documents
• College Student-Services Videos for Degree Audits and Holds
• Split scenes around the points that must stay distinct

Turn one award template into a family explainer

Turn one award template into a reviewed family explainer before the next award batch. Show cost of attendance apart from the bill, insert the reconciled offer, and have the aid terms checked in every language you publish. Start in Golpo. Institution style, the offer image, and an authorized voice are on Business and higher. Compare plans on the pricing page.