No, fasfa is transmitted to your schools who will mail you your fa package. I also noticed the discrepency between some private and public school too. I can tell you from experience that at many of these schools, it's what I call a "false" discrepency, because the student's of equal wealth (ie no money, no merit scholarship, not in any military program) will have the opposite amount of indebtness when comparing schools. So even though I wouldn't put too much weight into the exact number (ie don't think that just because this school is 10K cheaper then that school, that it must have a great FA program), I would use the usnews section to rule out or rule in schools with obscene numbers (ie if a school is getting an avg of 150 K and you want to go to a "cheap" school, that particular school may be one that you can not apply to, if you can afford to do so from an admissions standpoint). Again, the best source before you get your FA package (which at some schools don't even come out until after the deadline for deposits comes) is from upper year students. SDN helps in that sometimes, you can communicate anonymously with students at med schools who may be more willing to share with you their FA numbers anonymously.