Colleges are reported in the United States to have excessively high tuition rates generally, and this has been a source of contention for students across the nation. When a college raises the tuition rates, they have to take certain things into consideration.
First of all, colleges are all different. Ivy-league schools, for example, cater to the affluent and ambitious strictly, and cost of attendance is seen as more of a necessary expense that most students can afford. Increases in tuition at these school probably would not affect most students decision to enroll, so there would be a profit from increases.
At community colleges and small private colleges, the middle class and lower class are most likely to attend, and this would create competition among colleges as far as affordability for the student in question. In many cases, the tuition rate plays a considerable role in the decision to attend a college for many students, so raising the tuition would make some students decide to enroll elsewhere at a lower rate.
It is hard to say what percentage of students in community and small colleges base their decision to enroll in a college based on the tuition rate, but overall it would be safe to assume that if a school was to raise its tuition rate, it must offer enough advantages to justify enrollment in the mind of the student.
Popular schools will attract a different crowd of younger students, who attend for social reasons in many cases. These non-academic considerations play a role in many students decisions to attend a particular institution.
A college would have to evaluate closely the psychographics of the applying students to determine if tuition rates can be raised without affecting enrollment considerably, to the point of a loss of revenue.
It can go both ways, depending on the school and the types of students who attend, whether you would make a profit or not by raising tuition rates. A college who wants to be competitive must know their students well and do a careful study of many different factors before they raise tuition rates considerably.
It is possible that raising tuition for college will create more revenue, but it is much more likely that an increase in tuition will cause students to choose to abandon that college, find another one, or completely abandon dreams of college altogether. Each student makes an individual decision, of course, but most base their decisions on the monetary value of the degree versus the value of said degree.
The increasing availability of the internet and studies done by outside sources as to how much each degree is worth allows individuals to weigh the pros and cons of an advanced degree. If a college were to increase tuition now, it would likely see a decrease in revenue because of this correlation. A college might benefit by decreasing individual tuition, because this would make a degree more accessible to students. I've posted links for further consideration.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/lucielapovsky/2016/12/29/why-colleges-continue-to-increase-tuition-when-many-should-lower-it/
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