Worried that sticker shock is scaring cost-conscious students away from their campuses, some small private colleges are slashing their tuition by thousands of dollars.
Converse College in Spartanburg, S.C., is the latest to do so, announcing this month that it will cut tuition next fall 43 percent, to $16,500 from $29,124. Ashland University in Ohio made a similar announcement last month.
They join Belmont Abby College in North Carolina, Concordia University in St. Paul, Minn., and Alaska Pacific University in Anchorage, Alaska, where tuition bills dropped by about a third compared with last year. At least six other colleges made significant tuition cuts last year.
The trend – sometimes called a “tuition reset” – reflects a growing emphasis on affordability in higher education. The lower sticker price does not necessarily mean all students are paying less because most schools had been offsetting the sticker prices with generous amounts of financial aid.
Recent data suggest that strategy no longer works for all colleges. In a joint study last year by the nonprofit College Board and the Baltimore-based Arts & Science Group, slightly more than half of 1,461 college-bound high school seniors said they judged colleges on the basis of sticker price.
“Schools are taking a step back, and saying, ‘What is the purpose of raising tuition?’” said Kevin Crockett, president of Noel-Levitz, an enrollment management consultant. “There is little doubt that that discussion is occurring with greater frequency.”
Nationally recognized colleges can charge a higher tuition because demand for their degree is so strong that some families are willing to pay the full price.
Less-selective colleges risk enrollment drops if families look for cheaper alternatives.
Competition for students is getting tighter. College enrollments plunged by nearly a half-million last fall after six consecutive years of growth, the Census Bureau reported this month.
“That’s going to have an impact somewhere,” says Edie Behr, an analyst with Moody’s Investors Service. Among schools that have faced “precipitous enrollment declines,” a new Moody’s report says, are Loyola University in New Orleans and Central College in Pella, Iowa, both private colleges, and St. Mary’s College of Maryland, a public college.
It’s not clear whether more colleges will follow suit. Many small private colleges are “quite fearful” of being perceived as a lower-quality school if they cut tuition, said higher education consultant Lucie Lapovsky.
Roger Williams University in Bristol, R.I., considered cutting tuition but opted instead to freeze tuition at $29,976, lock it in for freshmen and continue offering hefty merit- and need-based aid. (Fees, at $1,629 this year, did not freeze.)
Their research showed that families view price as an indicator of quality and like boasting about snagging a discount.
“People are shopping for us the same way they do for clothing,” said President Don Farish. The school’s freshman enrollments are up from last year.
Concordia College in St. Paul found similar success by lopping $10,000 off its sticker price. Tuition and fees totaled $19,700. Concordia offers some financial aid, but less than in the past. Freshman and transfer enrollments increased 43 percent.
The reset is costing Concordia some money this year, but officials see a long-term payoff.
“If we kept going at that rate, we were going to have fewer and fewer students coming to us,” said Chief Operating Officer Eric LaMott.
“The high price of an undergraduate degree doesn’t carry the value it used to carry,” he said.
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