Yes, it’s quite possible that only private colleges that offer something significantly different from public universities (either through prestige signaling or specific features) will make it.
Note also that the State in the article is Pennsylvania, which has a weird structure (community colleges lead to “state colleges”, “university branch campuses” lead to “state flagships” and cost much more than community colleges), high public costs, and bad financial aid. So, traditionally, PA private universities were able to compete with the public universities. The costs listed in#18 would be lower than what lower and middle income students would pay at their flagship and “slightly higher to similar” to costs at a directional 4-year public college. The issue is that PA private universities may not be able to compete with instate public university costs in other states, such as NYS (with SUNYs tuition free for families making up to 125K) or Maryland switching to a model where merit or external scholarships aren’t subtracted from need based grants and offering more aid for working class families (Guaranteed Access, 2+2), and strong PA students are attracted by better costs through merit aid at public universities in OH or WV even OOS.
There ARE reserves of “new students”, but they simply can’t pay full price OOS or at private colleges - US first generation/middle class&lower income students, international studens who need aid.
However, I don’t think removing the May 1 “college decision day” date is going to help anything.
My S19 was accepted at Bucknell - it wasn’t even a consideration once we saw the cost. In the acceptance, there was even information about a definite tuition increase over the next few years of at least 3%.
As far as CC in PA - they are always ranked very poorly.
They attributed it to other schools offering better aid, but that would only be true if it was last minute aid. It’s more likely a lot of kids were able to get into a better school off the waitlist. This trickle down is going to crush smaller LACs.
There is a tightening of supply (students) plus people are weighing the value of different schools and majors. This adds up to a squeeze at pricey schools where the prestige isn’t that high in the real world.
Also I wonder if targeting students that need financial aid is impacting their ability to offer merit aid to middle and upper middle class kids. Those kids probably choose a state school instead.
Article on the rescinded rules re: May 1 deadline, offering incentives to commit earlier, “poaching” students after May 1, etc:
https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2019/09/30/nacac-agrees-change-its-code-ethics
Do private colleges have the luxury of lowering prices if their brand-conscious core customers are counting on high prices to keep out the riff-raff? I mean, won’t they lose the brand-conscious families who don’t want “little Yale” to be over-run by price-conscious families? Private schools have a brand to protect, and that brand usually rests on the perception of exclusivity.
I don’t know why this is surprising to the schools. Costs have increased at a much higher rate than income so at some point they weren’t going to be able to fill the seats. Particularly interesting was their surprise that 10% went to community colleges - that tells you that 10% of the students they anticipated being able to pay the EFC with loans, grants and scholarships decided the cost wasn’t worth it. Families are looking for affordable options, and it seems that what is on the table today isn’t enticing commitment. We’ll see how this plays out.
Post commitment poaching will mean ED and ED II is going to be the norm. RD will be the new waitlist at competitive private schools. Very small numbers of students to fill out a class.
The ivies and the like aren’t part of this dialogue.
Except they may poach from each other.
Big scholarships and perquisites at the schools with mega endowments 2b+ making a run for some star students in May.
This isn’t good for the donut hole I’m afraid.
I think this will push non top 20 schools that are private to look to ED for the guaranteed enrollees, but I also think this will force them to either offer better financial aid to middle or upper middle class kids or offer more merit money. In the end I see this impacting economic and ethnic diversity.
Diversity was a mission statemey of those colleges and a relatively recent one in terms of generations. Mission statements typically are aspirational. My guess is these colleges will weigh and evaluate all the variables that contribute to sustainability.
I thought this was interesting-McDaniel, a small private college, has enrolled their largest freshman class ever, and their first to be 50% students of color. It’s one of the CTCL schools. Need to dig in more to see what they are doing right to attract students. https://www.mcdaniel.edu/information/headlines/news-at-mcdaniel/archive/mcdaniel-college-welcomes-record-setting-class
Another ripple will be at the large state schools. As well-qualified kids start jumping from expensive LACs back to flagships they’re going to displace more and more above-average kids who are going to be pushed back to directionals. I think the chaos in the middle and lower LACs is going to be very bad for them but might be a good thing for the publics. Someone above already mentioned Madison growing, and I think they will be more and more of it as the costs just vanish into the clouds for many people.
EDIT: And of course this is going to be hard on poorly prepared kids who might have hung around the edges at the directionals and still picked up some aid. As the competition improves it’s going to squeeze some of those fringy kids out, which will likely have a disproportionate impact on minorities and first-gen students.
I’m not at all surprised this has happened, and am surprised it took so long and for college costs to get to where they have before this happened. I’ve been away from the college admissions scene for a number of years, and in that time Merit awards at the smaller private schools have gone up 4 fold and more. Some of my kids would get these sweeteners in a lints if $5k and less. Now not unusual to see $20k awards
With costs shooting past $70k and edging ( sometimes exceeding) the $80k price line, it’s no wonder that Enrollment is diminishing at these schools. Throw in demographics with fewer children, including college aged ones, and there are simply more colleges than students to fill them.
The UCs experienced diminished applications this year, which to me was a harbinger, of things to come with fewer college aged kids. Having lived in PA, i was familiar with the exodus of college freshmen to surrounding state schools because the cost of the 3 state associated schools with the most name recognition, Pitt, PSU and Temple came with a high enough price tag that it wasn’t much more to check out Ohio and other nearby states’ public schools . Temple appeared to have bitten off more than it could chew with its extraordinary guaranteed merit schedules.
I’ve alway really liked the excellent private LACs that PA had to offer. I pushed all of my kids to apply to them, as I believed they would get outstanding education with more than the usual directed attention at a number of those schools. Ursinus has always been a great source of generous merit awards which I believe has kept their enrollment where it is. McDaniel (not a PA school) has always done the same.
Another issue that hurts schools is that kids are increasingly committing to multiple schools on May 1. Though this is specifically addressed in NASAC regulations,
there is little a counselor can do, if a student supported by parents make that push. Apparently the colleges are reluctant to flush students who don’t come up with that final transcript if they lay down the deposits. Summer melt has become a major issue, from what I’ve been told at several colleges and by a number of high school GCs. Unless colleges take more draconian measures to monitor this and dole out real consequences, I don’t see this ending.
I had thought private college costs would stabilize and increase only very slowly once the $40-50k mark was reached, but clearly, not the case. With mainstream colleges reluctant to lower their sticker prices,; apparently doing so hurts them from instances that schools have tried this strategy, I think it’s coming to a game of musical chairs with colleges with the music ending when the school year begins with empty seats rather than not enough. On the other hand, the most selective schools are attracting even more applicants. It’s going to be a survival of the fittest here.
There is a good chance ED as we know it, will not be around for much longer. Colleges that “share” information and then take actions (“consequences”), will be kicking a huge antitrust hornets nest…
Going after colleges based on admissions policy and cost, is popular with politicians of all types; liberal or conservative.
It actually seems like most politicians benefit from elite admissions as they are so I really question if there would be any change. It will be interesting to see if anything comes of this. I’m not optimistic. The ED process benefits the wealthier and well counseled for sure.
Almost every local politician’s kid, especially at the national level, seems to end up at an elite school. Even the kid the who became the poster child for special ed in our state for a number of years ended up an ivy.
Prominent politicians’ kids have an inside track that is unlikely to be affected by whatever changes colleges do to their other admissions practices that most applicants will be affected by.
In an efficient market, most lower tier LACs with sky high tuition shouldn’t exist in the first place. What value do they offer over alternatives?
Because not everybody compulsively looks through USNews rankings and make their choice based on that. There are many LACs which are ranked low, but are still very well known, and thus have prestige that is not dependent on USNews rankings. There is Sarah Lawrence which USNews ranks at #68, and it has an amazing reputation, outside of the UNews crowd.
Moreover, about 40% of the top 1% are not accepted into “elite” colleges, which is about 12,000 kids every year, and many of them want a LAC education. Most of the kids who attend expensive LACs are from the top 20%. About half of these, or about 150,000, do not attend “elite” colleges.
So the value they offer is all of the benefits of a small liberal arts college, while accepting kids with GPAs in the 3.0 range.
Many are also religious and conservative, so they offer a Liberal Arts education to students who do not want to attend “upper tier” colleges, most which are either not religious or, when religious, pretty liberal.
Most of the “value” offered by institutions of education are not tangible, and cannot be monetized, despite the claims of magazines like Forbes. Education is not a business, and running education like a business brings down the standards (since “costumer satisfaction” rarely coincides with “enforcing standards”, when the “Costumers” are 18 year old students), and rewards limiting education to the very wealthiest.
So if you want high level education to be available to anybody but the very wealthiest, and you want that education to be more than pandering to the whims of spoiled teenagers, you will not expect, or even want, an “efficient market”. BTW, for-profit “universities” are run as an “efficient market”, and they do not educate, and their graduation rate is abysmal.
PS. There are many more students attending “low tier” private universities with tuition over $40,000 (over $65,000 CoA) than there are those attending “low tier” private LACs.
^I don’t think the poster was talking about colleges ranked in the 60s. There are hundreds of colleges that are over priced and unranked or very “high” rank that should close. Even though they may have a great X department or Y program. Which many do, but they are not good enough to educate students in a world that wants more majors, more resources, more labs, etc.
The college system needs an Uber moment. A real change that no one has thought of. Perhaps a colleges that has great academic buildings and professors, but zero other perks. Students could participate in sports or activities at near by private businesses and rent dorms/apartments nearby offerings from private business. No babysitting over-involved administration. Some of these academics could be trade schools, nursing schools, in addition to standard traditional majors. The full college experience, with the extras each student is willing to pay for. Like life. Like in the rest of the world!
Don’t most college students in the US commute to a local college and major in “practical” pre-professional subjects? I.e. what you are saying above?
Residential LACs that are expensive but undistinguished (including in ways other than just rankings) may get a lot of attention here, but only a small number of students attend such schools, compared to the number of students commuting to a local college.