{"id":2355,"date":"2026-05-09T20:39:36","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T20:39:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/knowacademia.com\/?p=2355"},"modified":"2026-05-09T20:39:38","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T20:39:38","slug":"do-ever-larger-tuition-discounts-work-at-all-colleges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/knowacademia.com\/?p=2355","title":{"rendered":"Do Ever Larger Tuition Discounts Work at All Colleges?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n

In an April 2025 blog, I raised the question of whether or not tuition discounting (institutional grants) has run its course for college with enrollment less than 2,000 full-time-equivalent students. The blog used data up to 2023. Now, I have added IPEDS data from data to the analysis, The analysis looks at the effect that a 1% change in tuition discounting has on enrollment.<\/p>\n

Chart 1 shows that for colleges with less than 2,000 students that any kind of a positive relationship between tuition discounting and enrollment has collapsed. Increasing the discount at these schools has had no impact on enrollment. It would almost appear that they have already encountered the demographic cliff five years before the predicted year. The polynomial trend suggests that calamity may be just around the corner.<\/p>\n

For colleges with enrollments equal to or greater than 2,000 students, the polynomial trend suggests that the marginal value of tuition discounting may have started to flatten. It would not be too surprising that trend for these colleges will turn downward.<\/p>\n

Chart 1<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I have included Chart 2, which uses a linear trend analysis, because it is easier to interpret the slopes of a linear equation. Colleges with enrollments equal to or greater than 2,0000 students have a very small up ward trend, while the linear trend for colleges under 2,000 confirms what was noted for Chart 1. Small colleges are getting no effect from increases in tuition discounts.<\/p>\n

Chart 2<\/p>\n

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For my conclusion, I will only talk about colleges with less than 2,000 FTE students. The average small college is wasting its time with tuition discounting. Here is an alternative pricing and by implication marketing strategy. If your college\u2019s net tuition is less than the tuition charged by your competition, change your gross price so that it is under the competition. Then advertise that you offer students a quality degree with a reasonable price. If your net price is under the public university in your area, lower your price to slightly below the public university. Then advertise to their market that they can earn a degree at your college without the hassle of a major university that doesn\u2019t care about you.<\/p>\n

Wish you the best as you work to keep your college from tipping over the demographic cliff.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In an April 2025 blog, I raised the question of whether or not tuition discounting (institutional grants) has run its course for college with enrollment less than 2,000 full-time-equivalent students. The blog used data up to 2023. Now, I have added IPEDS data from data to the analysis, The analysis looks at the effect that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"coauthors":[24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/knowacademia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2355"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/knowacademia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/knowacademia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/knowacademia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/knowacademia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2355"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/knowacademia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2355\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2363,"href":"https:\/\/knowacademia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2355\/revisions\/2363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/knowacademia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/knowacademia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/knowacademia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2355"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/knowacademia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=2355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}