Costs and Financial Aid. The cost of attendance is the total amount of tuition, fees, room and board, books, supplies, and other estimated school expenses. Financial aid is a combination of grants, loans, scholarships, and work-study employment designed to help offset the total cost of attendance.
One of the major problems for an investor looking at that 10% average return figure and mistakenly expecting to realize a nice yearly profit from investing in the S&P 500 is inflation. Adjusted for inflation, the historical average annual return is only around 7%.
For example, 20,000 USD returned on an initial investment of 100,000 USD is a return of 20%. If the 20,000 USD is paid in 5 installments of 4,000 USD, with no reinvestment, and no information about the timing of the installments, the rate of return is 4,000 / 100,000 = 20% / 5 = 4% per year.