Big Fat Story
Transfers and “discount rates”—students are shopping around.
In rural Pennsylvania, small state schools like East Stroudsburg University and Kutztown University have noted an uptick in applications that they attribute to bargain hunting. Trying to win some of these students back, more expensive schools like Lehigh University are offering “heavily discounted tuition” for lower- and middle-income families. Even students who are already halfway through college can be won over, it seems: state schools in New Jersey, Indiana, Texas, and Florida report huge increases in transfer requests. It makes perfect sense in hard times: students who go to a state school next fall—and who keep living at home instead of in a dorm—will save upwards of $30,000 a year on college costs.
Will applicants accept their acceptance letters?
In a bizarre scenario that one admissions officer described as “role reversal,” this year colleges are the ones anxiously waiting to hear if accepted students plan to actually enroll. Private universities, worried that an unusually high number of accepted applicants will choose not to attend because of cost concerns, are raising their enrollment rates, similar to the way airlines overbook flights in anticipation of no-shows. Meanwhile, public universities are doing just the opposite: cutting back on enrollment rates as the number of students seeking cheaper education surges. Some public schools, like Cal State, have even started waiting lists for the first time ever.
A college education isn’t always a smart financial move.
As more cash-strapped families struggle to pay tuition bills, they’re beginning to wonder if the financial sacrifice is worth it. Last year, a community college professor anonymously argued persuasively that some people shouldn’t go to college. He lamented the students who arrived in his classroom each year, clearly unready for higher education, who had enrolled simply because they’d always been told that everyone should go to college. Inevitably, he wrote, many founder before ultimately failing or dropping out. “Students routinely fail; some fail multiple times, and some will never pass, because they cannot write a coherent sentence,” he complained. These students drain financial aid resources, and in the end, they’re left with less money, lost time, and no meaningful education to show for it.
The 6 New Rules of College Admissions
With college acceptance and rejection letters hitting mailboxes this week, the economic meltdown has already dramatically changed the game of getting in. Students are transferring to cheaper schools, more parents are bribing the back office, and endowments are plummeting. A crib sheet to the changing rules of college economics.
This year, it’s easier than ever to bribe your way in.
Donations have always occupied a semi-nefarious spot in the college admissions process. Everyone suspects they give applicants an edge, and according to admissions officers, they’re right. This year, with colleges struggling to stay in the black, a greasy palm can push open more doors than ever, according to a Daily Beast expose. “We recently had a generous donor suggest we admit more students from Nevada, his home state,” reveals one Ivy League admissions officer. “It was like, ‘All hands on deck! How do we get more kids from Nevada to apply, stat?’”
The stimulus bill might make college harder—not easier—to afford.
President Obama’s plan to increase federal funding for financial aid is misguided, argues Zac Bissonnette. In fact, that kind of thinking is the reason college is so expensive to begin with. The stimulus bill will increase money for Pell Grants, adding $500 to the maximum grant amount for 2009-2010. That may help students in the short-term, but generous government assistance like this is what allows colleges to charge astronomical tuition. And it’s not just pricey private universities; from 2002 to 2006, tuition and fees at public universities rose 57 percent. “A tightening in the student loan market could be just the tough love students need to get them to pay for college the right way: by working 80-hour weeks during the summer,” writes Bissonnette.
Is it easier than ever to get in?
If you can still afford a liberal arts education at an elite private college, this may be your year. Applications at seven of the nation’s eight top private liberal-arts colleges have dropped, some substantially, in the wake of the recession. Williams College reported a 20 percent decline, and Swarthmore’s application went down by 10 percent. Applications to Ivy League schools are still going up, but smaller, prestigious schools—Bowdoin, Carleton, Middlebury and Amherst among them—have all seen declines. Understatement of the year: “This year it might be about the money,” said Jim Bock, Swarthmore’s dean of admissions. “We just don’t know.”
Partner Sites: Expedia| Hotels| Hotwire| Urbanspoon| Vimeo
Thank you.
As a first time user, your comment has been submitted for review. It can take anywhere from a few hours to a day or two for your comment to be reviewed, depending on the time of week and the volume of comments we receive.
Please log in to leave comments.