The Price Of A College Education - 3529 Words

The Price of a College Education: Tuition Discounting in Higher Education David Bryant Baruch College – The City University of New York The Price of a College Education: Tuition Discounting in Higher Education Offering a discount in college tuition has become a standard practice amongst private colleges and universities across the United States as a way of offsetting its published price of tuition—the sticker price—and aid from institutional grants and endowments for enrolling students. (Association of Governing Boards, 2014) This practice has become widely scrutinized as institutions employ a discount to their sticker price as a technique to control their enrollment to satisfy their own visions and preferences. This may not†¦show more content†¦The discount rate was 46.4 percent for first-year matriculated students in the fall of 2013 at campuses across the United States. According to NACUBO’s survey of 401 non-profit colleges, this demonstrates that tuition discounting is at an all time high, as this rate has increased from 44.8 percent in 2012 (Lapovsky, 2014). To demonstrate tuition discounting further, O’Shaughnessy (2011) describes how tuition discounting is employed and contends that most students and families are receiving some form of aid or discount: Here s an example of how tuition discounts work: Let s say the tuition is $40,000 and a student received the equivalent of a 49.1 percent price break. In this case, the student [received] a grant (free money) from the school for $19,640. Over four years, this award would be worth $78,560. That s hardly chicken feed. You shouldn t assume that only the students with the most stellar academic credentials get this money. According to the NACUBO study, nearly 88 percent of freshmen attending private schools received institutional grants, which is a historic high. I d hate to be among the 12 percent of freshmen who ended up empty-handed when the grants were being distributed. It is apparent that tuition discounting is a current ‘hot button’ issue in higher education today. And as such, it is necessary to explore this notion further. In so doing, this paper will explore the history of tuition discounting from