Education

Busting The Myth Of The Perfect-Fit College


Private colleges knocked 54% off sticker prices this year, awarding record-breaking tuition discounts. But don’t be fooled. Those markdowns rarely translate to real savings—and often consign families to debt servitude.

Few families can pay tuition without discounts, but colleges seldom give students enough financial aid to make attending truly affordable. Even so, nearly all students choose schools based on factors other than affordability, a Gallup poll found, often confusing “right fit” with attending “dream colleges” regardless of cost.  

Figuring how to finance a degree without going broke or over-borrowing is what makes “right fit” so complicated. Colleges and families define “right fit” very differently. Families use emotion to find “right-fit” colleges. Colleges use logic, secret formulas and algorithms to select the “right-fit” students they need to meet revenue goals. That disconnect—between what colleges and students want—can lead to debt and disappointment.

Rebranding tuition discounts as “merit aid” and “scholarships” is one of many ego-stroking emotional appeals college executives use to tap veins that feed striving, bragging rights and aspiration. Adopting marketing and advertising strategies from Disneyland, Starbucks and luxury retailers, they’ve created consumer experiences to attract post-adolescents to their campuses for products and services that have little to do with learning.

They showcase students ripped from the pages of Abercrombie catalogs in aspirational brochures and websites featuring ivy-covered buildings and immaculately groomed grounds. They replaced smelly gyms and dormitories with resort amenities, beguiling families with extravagances few Americans can afford—concierge services, rooftop pools, outdoor theaters, fitness centers, lazy-river waterparks, hot tubs, saunas and rock-climbing walls. They charge premium prices for revenue-generating housing with granite countertops, stainless steel appliances, 50-inch flat-screen TVs, shower-head speakers, floor-to-ceiling windows and terraces with sweeping views.

Emotion, not logic, is why parents send their children to colleges they can’t afford. Families often become so invested in an emotional “right fit,” they frequently choose colleges that leave them with crippling debt that can’t be wiped away in bankruptcy. But the excitement, affection, and passion that families feel for a particular campus often have little to do with how colleges identify and enroll the students they need to fill their first-year classes.

Hardly anyone understands how rising tuition and family income impact the way colleges sort applicants. That’s by design.

To boost rank and revenues, colleges hire consultants called “enrollment managers.” Toiling in obscurity, enrollment managers create algorithms and use statistical analysis to calculate the lowest possible tuition discount needed to make students feel so wanted they’d be willing to pay inflated prices or go into debt to enroll.

Almost always the algorithm makes the same demand: Admit more rich kids. That’s why schools often give higher discounts to families with incomes greater than $100,000 than they do to students from families with incomes less than $20,000. Why? Because awarding $30,000 “merit scholarships” to two less-qualified affluent students generates more revenue than giving the same $60,000 grant to one moderate-or low-income applicant.

It’s no wonder that as college costs soared, so did debt. Private college tuition has increased nearly 1,000% since 1980. Average college debt, $3,900 in 1980, is now almost $37,000. Nearly 45 million Americans hold a total of $1.71 trillion in student loans.

The wealthier the school, the higher its U.S. News & World Report “Best Colleges” ranking, and the more desired it seemed to families searching for “perfect fit” campuses. One California mother whose daughter chose the more expensive University of Miami over University of California, Merced said it was a “better fit.” Miami ranked higher and gave her daughter a merit scholarship. Plus, she said, it’s “like going to school at a Ritz Carlton. When you walk around the campus you think, well I know where my money is going.”  

But looks can deceive. Finding the right financial fit first prevents families from falling into the emotional traps college deliberately set. Debt dogs families for decades, especially if students leave college without degrees. Bankers don’t care about right fit that goes wrong. Like death and taxes, payments come due.



READ NEWS SOURCE

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this site, you accept our use of cookies.