I hope it doesn’t hurt them. Reducing the sticker price hasn’t worked for any of the private colleges that tried it.
I used to live in Utica, and even in that area Utica College is considered a low tier school. The 25-75 ACT range is 18 - 23, which is pretty low. All the SUNY schools, except possibly the Ag/Tech schools, are going to be better than that. In-state tuition and fees at a SUNY are around $7000, so Utica College at $20,000 is still pretty unattractive.
Rosemont cuts their sticker price from $45k down to $30k.
But their average cost for families earning $75k and up currently is $25.5k.
So they still are going to discount off the sticker. But just not to the wacky degree they did before.
At some point, high price/high discount gets meaningless and ridiculous if literally no one ever pays the sticker price.
"Today, Rosemont College is announcing a bold step we have named Our Tuition Promise: Starting next school year, we are reducing tuition by 43 percent. Tuition will drop from more than $32,000 to $18,500.
In addition, we will also be reducing room and board from $13,400 to $11,500 – a reduction of 14 percent. "
From Feds:
Family Income Average Cost
$0-$30,000 $23,745
$30,001-$48,000 $18,462
$48,001-$75,000 $19,524
$75,001-$110,000 $23,909
$110,001+ $28,676
It became more convenient to dissect colleges:)
These colleges are clearly angling for the 75K+ families whose kids, for whatever reasons, don’t want to attend the SUNY they got into. Perhaps Utica has better basketball than SUNY Oneonta. Perhaps they offer a major the nearest SUNY doesn’t offer. Perhaps there’s less red tape, or a prettier campus. They’re clearly not aiming for kids who apply to selective universities, but target kids who are borderline community college applicants (23 really isn’t a very high 75% threshold). Keep in mind also that they belong to HEOP, so if they attract and retain lower-income students, the State of New York will pay their tuition, which is a guaranteed source of revenue… if you can attract and retain enough students in that category.
While Utica may be pricing itself like an in-state public, as a small school it’s going to offer a more intimate setting than a 20000-40000 headcount public school.
Well, GMTplus7, SUNY is a huge system (62 campuses with undergraduate programs). https://www.suny.edu/attend/visit-us/complete-campus-list/
Some SUNY’s are quite small. Cortand and Oswego have about 7000 students, with student to faculty ratios of 17 to 1. Their ACT scores are a little bit higher, but I think Utica is in trouble (ala Sweetbier and Antioch).
I’m in a different part of the state, but the large system of cheap public education currently makes it hard for lower tier schools to do well. LACs in my area (WNY) are offering programs, like direct admit to physical therapy BS/MA, to attract students. Most of the SUNYs require competition for nursing, engineering, etc.
I do worry about decent quality LACs in this age of career. I am sensitive to the shortage of jobs nationally and in upstate NY, but we have a great infrastructure of schools. As a nation, we shouldn’t lose that infrastructure.
7,000 isn’t large, but it’s not small either, and a 1:17 faculty ratio is not that good (1:14 to 1:15 is good for a public university). So Utica or Rosemont (Catholic college) would offer different things at a similar enough cost.
If Utica’s in trouble, will it “go back” to Syracuse, from which it got detached?
@MYOS1634, HEOP is a tiny program wherever it is. Certainly not big enough to change a statistical profile.
I know, but it looks like they need all the help they can get, and since they can’t possibly expect students whose families earn $30,000 or less to pay$23,000 a year, and for families in the next bracket same situation, it looks like they’re aiming for the 75K+ families who can pay full price and would rather do that at a small college than a SUNY (for whatever reason), a little financial aid, and a little HEOP that guarantees tuition revenue from income brackets that they wouldn’t get revenue from.
Do you know if they could “go back” to being a Syracuse branch?
(Not sure why they went independent, perhaps because it was the original project’s vision? Being a branch campus to admit Syracuse borderline applicants until they transitioned to the main campus, like Blue Ash for UCincinnati, Greater Allegheny or Harrisburg for Penn State, would have been win-win, don’t you think?)
I know nothing, really, about Utica College. Just a little about EOP/HEOP. Some of the SUNY EOP programs are so oversubscribed that students are selected by lottery.
Unless they plan to significantly axe operating costs across the board (unlikely), the loss of revenue would have to be made up somewhere else. Utica’s endowment is tiny (~$25mil), so I’m not sure what their strategy is here.
Personally, I think it’s a gimmick.
Utica’s faculty:student ratio may be lower than the SUNYs (e.g. nearby Oneonta), but they have twice as many part-time faculty as full-time, and with a 4yr grad rate of 30% (6yr 44%) compared to Oneonta’s 56% (73%), and a transfer-out rate of almost 40%, it is clear that a lot of students are unsatisfied there.
“Unless they plan to significantly axe operating costs across the board (unlikely), the loss of revenue would have to be made up somewhere else. Utica’s endowment is tiny (~$25mil), so I’m not sure what their strategy is here.”
There’s no loss of revenue. In fact, I bet think think they will get more revenue.
The new “lower” price is still decently higher than the existing average revenue per student.
The strategy is to project more realistic and transparent information about what the actual price is. Similar to how some car dealerships have adopted lower (but firmer) no haggle pricing.
Who instigated the Syracuse/Utica divorce? It would seem that the opportunity to get a Syracuse degree would be a plus, especially for applicants who did not get accepted at the main Syracuse campus.
^I agree - I think that it would be a “better deal” if they functioned as a “branch campus” to Syracuse, focusing on general education and entrance-to-major classes for students who were borderline for Syracuse and didn’t make it, and would “transition” to the “main” Syracuse campus after 2 years (or longer if it took longer). It seems it was intentional but it must have hurt them not to be associated with Syracuse. Or perhaps they’re still working on their “brand”.
Yeah, we all know how well that strategy worked out for JCPenney… lol
TBD how well this will work for this college. Seems like a good idea to me for a low selectivity college like this one where literally no one pays the sticker price. I don’t think this concept would work for colleges higher up the selectivity ladder. But who knows.
“Every day one low price” didn’t work for JC Penney. Works at Walmart though.
Not to mention GM’s Saturn division.