(NY Post) by Naomi Schaefer Riley
When it comes to the cost of college, we may have reached the tipping point. According to a recent report in The New York Times, several colleges contacted applicants they hadn’t heard from after the official May 1 deadline to accept an admissions offer to see if they wouldn’t like to reconsider. Private schools, including Hampshire College in Massachusetts and Ursinus College in Pennsylvania, sent e-mails and texts to students after the point at which they were supposed to have put down a deposit. According to the Times, “The messages all hinted at a particular question: Might a larger discount prompt you to come here after all?”
Colleges have been in the habit of negotiating for some time. They have acted a little bit like airlines where everyone seems to pay a slightly different price for the same product. Airlines don’t ask for your tax returns before determining what you’ll pay, but the system for determining who pays what is similarly oblique. According to a recent study by the National Association of College and University Business Officers, “The estimated average institutional tuition discount rate for first-time, full-time freshmen at small institutions was 50.9 percent in 2016-17.” That means colleges are getting less than half of the tuition they want based on their enrollment and price. Read more
