<p>With some privates approaching $60,000/year, merit aid will not put much of a dent into the COA. I agree with you, uskoolfish, merit aid will be considered a discount, which you have to work hard to maintain the GPA to keep that merit! </p>
<p>For need-based aid, with this type of a price tag, will the school be giving out institutional grants of $40,000-$50,000? Highly unlikely! The “gap” will be growing. Keep your eye on the statistic of “Average Gift Aid” “Average Grant” and see where it goes for some of these high priced privates. </p>
<p>I do commend University of the South (Sewanee) for reducing their tuition when it appeared that they were losing a lot of applicants to public universities.</p>
<p>“I do commend University of the South (Sewanee) for reducing their tuition when it appeared that they were losing a lot of applicants to public universities.”</p>
<p>Perhaps kudos are not necessary,as perhaps they have been overcharging for years and the students and their families finally realized it…or the schools simply isn’t very good, and had to cut tuition to entice students to attend…this would be a school i’d not even consider…</p>
<p>I think there will be a gap between those schools that can get away with charging those $60K prices and those that are going to have to drop their prices and/or discount via “merit” awards. Of course, I’ve been saying this $20K ago and the costs have continued to rise.</p>
<p>True, especially when the merit aid just replaces some of the need based aid. D got the highest merit award at a prominent women’s college and it still ended up being among the most expensive option.</p>
<p>*With some privates approaching $60,000/year, merit aid will not put much of a dent into the COA.</p>
<p>True, especially when the merit aid just replaces some of the need based aid. D got the highest merit award at a prominent women’s college and it still ended up being among the most expensive option.*</p>
<p>Maybe at some point, some of these schools will need to stack merit onto FA to make the merit more meaningful. After all, a $20k per year merit scholarship is meaningless if the same school would have given $20k in need based grants anyway to the same student. It’s one thing to replace loans with merit, but when it reduces grants, what’s the point?</p>
<p>Vehemently agree with you captofhouse. Many families already viewing the mediocre privates/LACs as having priced themselves out of the market. My oldest will be a freshman at an OOS flagship next fall, and it’s COA roughly $18-20k less annually than several of the privates she was accepted to. Also was arguably her highest reach school (the flagship she’ll be attending) and she didn’t have to “settle” for second best. Next child in line is 15 and in 2 more years I go into all of this with eyes WIDE OPEN.</p>
<p>Sewanee does an excellent job of discounting its tuition, in spite of its relatively small endowment.</p>
<p>According to IPEDs, net price per income level is as follows:</p>
<p>$0 – $30,000 $4,731</p>
<p>$30,001 – $48,000 $9,369</p>
<p>$48,001 – $75,000 $9,935</p>
<p>$75,001 – $110,000 $10,049</p>
<p>$110,001 and more $27,035</p>
<p>As much as people talk about ‘pricing out’ of LACs versus state schools and tuition at OOS schools, I’m wondering how long it will be before OOS tuition starts to look like some of these small privates, as budget cutbacks, etc. force more and more tuition increases at state schools.</p>
<p>Sewanee probably has it right here. If it holds tuition at this level, and OOS tuition starts to rise, COA for an OOS school will start looking like its tuition.</p>
<p>Friend of mine’s son is going to Sewanee and she is very happy about her $5K savings and that the cost is about $10K less than other schools he was considering. That’s $40K over 4 years.</p>
<p>Wow! I’ve heard good things about Sewanee. Wished my son would have looked there. Impressive on the net price calculation. Thanks for posting this info.</p>
<p>qdogpa, what’s wrong with Sewanee?? It’s in the top 50 LAC (32 this year), small classes thought by PhDs and has a great curriculum. Neighbor’s kid went there, loved it and got into her 1st choice top 10 med school.</p>
<p>Maybe OP isn’t reading any more, but if he is, or if somebody has a similar problem, how about this–will the expensive school allow your daughter to defer enrollment for a year? She might be able to earn some money in the meantime, and also perhaps the cash outlay for the trade school will be finished, or mostly finished, by that time. This would reduce the need for borrowing.</p>
<p>My comment was based on the fact of cutting costs to attract students,thats all…If a school needs to do this,then there are several issues at play…one,it was overpriced to begin With or two,it wasn’t that good of a school at that original price point…No so called pricey schools are having any problems attracting students,none…same goes for flagships, why did sewanee need to do so?</p>
<p>There’s a lot of “institutional research” going on behind the scenes at all schools. It’s where the colleges research and evaluate themselves, their goals and their students in respect to a number of factors. In light of the economy, most are trying to understand what will ensure their viability- whatever that means to them (eg in terms of financial strength and reputation.) It’s not necessarily a matter of declining enrollment or some specific problem. It can simply be a proactive attempt to ensure a good draw over the next 10 years. Eg, if prices drop a bit, more of the squeezed upper middle classes might feel comfortable paying their portions and keep yield high. It’s a complexity of considerations. Not much different than a manufacturer allowing some discount period to build market share.</p>
<p>I actually disagree with you qdoba…I think there probably are a number of pricey schools that are having trouble with their “yield.” Applications might be up, but students actually choosing these schools to enroll at…? I think that answer is still up for grabs.</p>
<p>qdogpa, I had a different reaction to Sewanee’s announcement. Kind of “We know that all of you families are having to tighten your belts and trim your budgets, so we’re going to do the same, and pass the savings on to you.” </p>
<p>I’m curious to see what tuition increases for 2011-2012 end up looking like for a wide variety of schools. I gathered up the COA and tuition numbers for the last five years at D1’s school, and now we have the projected COA and tuition for her freshman year. Astoundingly, the tuition increase for next year is projected to be 1%, as compared to an average of over 4% for the previous four years. Tuition increases for the 2007-08 and 08-09 years were nearly 6%, and dropped down below 4% after that. COA increases are of course higher, but perhaps schools will really make an effort to keep the rate of increase down.</p>
<p>1) Sewanee loses a lot of kids to state flagships, such as UGA, UNC, UVa.</p>
<p>2) The move to reduce tuition, with the assumption that tuition will rise further at state schools, puts Sewanee “within striking distance of the out of state tuition at University of Georgia”</p>
<p>3) Sewanee’s yield is now 24% of those admitted, the lowest of the past decade. (And its admit rate is around 60%).</p>
<p>I don’t necessarily think the school is overpriced; the article does say that it’s going to have to rely more on its endowment for the next few years. It is unlikely that it can do that for the long term, as its endowment is very small–about 315 million.</p>
<p>I do know that many state schools are going to increase enrollment (the school I teach at will) without necessarily increasing faculty, advisors, dorms, etc. If this increase in enrollment begins to also impact graduation rates, such that at a state school it now takes longer to graduate, then the cost difference in tuition between a place like Sewanee and a state school is going to be seen in a different light, especially for OOS students.</p>
<p>Funny as the schools i am aware of had MORE students accept then anticipated,and enrollments were greater then expected…perhaps this changes in the next few years,but right now,i don’t see any schools in the so-called pricey range have any problems with enrollments…this would include PA/NJ/NY/CT area where the pricey schools all sem to congregate. ;)</p>
<p>We won’t know what the shakedown will be until well after May 1. I am not sure how WL admissions are used. I know a number of kids who are accepting schools with an eye on WLs of other schools.</p>