Given George Washington University's reputation as being particularly pricey, the decision to host a national forum there last week on containing the cost of college could be seen either as highly ironic or as a perfect illustration of why the issue is more complex than parents and federal legislators would like to believe. At more than $39,000 in annual tuition and fees, not to mention room and board, the school was named by "The Chronicle of Higher Education" as among the most expensive colleges in the country for 2007-2008. The forum here in the nation's capital came amid what's become a war of words over elite colleges' brimming endowments, how much more colleges and universities should help students pay for their education, and whether the federal government should take steps to force them to do so. Less mentioned, however, has been one of the subjects of the event: whether recent announcements by Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and other top universities that they plan to tap endowment funds to ramp up financial aid will substantially alter the financial equation for students applying to college. Patrick M. Callan, the founding president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, or NCPPHE, which co-sponsored the George Washington meeting, called the plans "precious little experiments that are noble but hardly relevant" because they will help only a tiny slice of the college-going population.