In Tuition Game Popularity Rises With Price.pdf - University of Notre ...

In Tuition Game, Popularity Rises With Price - New York Times
tuition and fees this year by about 9 percent, their biggest jump in several years. Bryn Mawr
officials say they made the decision after their research showed that the college charged less
than its rivals and awarded more aid. The officials concluded that raising tuition would not
deter applicants, because prospective students already assumed that Bryn Mawr cost the same
as comparable colleges.
“The question was, Does that make sense?” said John Griffith, Bryn Mawr’s treasurer and chief
financial officer. “Have we benefited at all from being the low price point? And the answer was
no.”
Some of the nation’s bigger institutions have also found an incentive to raise prices. As part of
an effort to improve its academic offerings and transcend its renown for football, the University
of Notre Dame has raised tuition and fees by an inflation-adjusted 27 percent since 1999, to
$32,900. In setting tuition, Notre Dame watches 20 other colleges and universities, including
the University of Chicago, Emory and Vanderbilt.
“We’re setting it by our competitors,” said the Rev. John I. Jenkins, the institution’s president.
But Notre Dame’s financial aid has increased even more over the same period, with
undergraduate scholarships up 107 percent after adjustment for inflation. This year the
university is distributing $68 million.
Facing stiff competition, Hendrix College, a small liberal arts institution in Conway, Ark.,
decided two years ago to bolster its academic offerings, promising students at least three
hands-on experiences outside the classroom, including research, internships and service
projects. It also raised tuition and fees 29 percent, to $21,636. Most of the increase went back
to students as aid.
As a result, 409 students enrolled in the freshman class this year, a 37 percent increase.
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“What worked was the buzz,” said J. Timothy Cloyd, the Hendrix president. “Students saw that
they were going to get an experience that had value, and the price positioning conveyed to
them the value of the experience.”
Other colleges have tried the opposite. Muskingum College in New Concord, Ohio, cut tuition
and fees drastically in 1996, to $10,285 from $14,240.
“We believed that if we lowered tuition, we would open access to the middle class” and “that we
would continue to serve the higher socioeconomic-background students by becoming a best-
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12/12/2006