Tuition Discounting
Not just a private college practice
The practice of tuition discounting or price discrimination—charging different students different prices for the same educational opportunities—is a long-standing feature of private higher education institutions.
But also in the public sector, significant amounts of institutional aid are being distributed based on criteria other than need. In addition, a high proportion of dollars are allocated to students whose financial circumstances would permit them to enroll without these subsidies.
In Tuition Discounting: Not Just a Private College Practice we report on tuition discounting for undergraduate students at public four-year and two-year institutions, using data from the College Board's Annual Survey of Colleges.
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Tuition Discounting: Not Just a Private College Practice (.pdf/52K) Requires Adobe Reader (latest version recommended).
The evidence presented in this analysis raises many public policy questions that need further consideration. These questions include:
- Is access to public higher education enhanced or diminished by institutional aid policies?
- What would the composition of the enrollment at public colleges look like if all of the grant aid were need-based?
- How does aid differ by the academic characteristics of the students at public four-year institutions?
- How much of the institutional aid at public institutions goes to out-of-state students?
- How do institutional and state policies interact with the combination of tuition and fee levels and the distribution of students across categories of institutions to determine the amounts of grant aid received by students with different levels of financial resources?
- Are tuition discounting policies at public colleges and universities consistent with their missions?
We hope that this study and these questions will motivate further research and dialogue on institutional financial aid at public institutions.