Eric Currie
September 13, 2022
It’s All About Price!
Eric Currie
Price Matters
Recently, my family and I decided to order takeout for dinner. We looked at a variety of restaurants: Southern Barbecue, Thai, Japanese, Chinese, and Traditional American. We settled on pizza. Why? Because of the price! They have a special every so often selling all pizzas at 50% off. You should have seen the restaurant, it was full of hungry customers.
Now you may be asking, are you seriously going to compare a university education to a dinner meal? Why in fact, yes I am.
In the last few weeks, my rising junior has gone back to high school. Our home is inundated by marketing material from a great number of universities attempting to recruit my daughter.
I asked her: What are your thoughts on college? Now keep in mind my teenager received a National Honors Society Award from College Board, has a 4.0, completed three AP courses, and scored in the top 5% in one area of the PSAT.
My teenager shared quickly - “I am going to go local and probably go to the college that will be the least expensive.”
I asked why.
She replied, “I don't want debt and I really don't think the more expensive schools will place me further ahead than the low-cost options!”
Three Important Articles
In the last three weeks articles have been published concerning the cost of education and how families are responding.
1) Three weeks ago a key article asked the fundamental question: Is a college education worth it? One of the significant quotes from the story included "Sentiment is widespread even among Americans who went to college. More than four in ten bachelor’s degree holders under 45 did not agree that the benefits of their educations exceeded the costs, according to a survey by the Federal Reserve."
Wow - this is your younger alumni base who are influential for high school students stating the degree they graduated with is not worth it. How are you communicating with future students? How you are supporting your young alumni? Are you listening to your recent graduates?
How you respond to these questions is important because students are listening to these recent grads in the places they work, live, eat family meals with, etc…so is your college education worth it?
2) Two weeks ago I read of a college that has responded to the pricing issue by reducing their tuition by 62%. This may seem to be a drastic step but it speaks to the climate we find ourselves in within higher education. Universities know they need to respond to families' concerns about finances and with summer's rising inflationary costs are now taking significant measures to gain the attention of potential students.
3) The final piece that came out recently indicated a whopping 80% of high school graduates did not even look at a college if they perceived or viewed them as too expensive. The difficult aspect of this article is that the prospective student moves on from you even before they hear your message. I have often heard from institutional leaders that you need to tell the story of the institution and make the value proposition. However, this article indicates that if you are more than $30,000 a year, the majority of potential students are likely to tune you out because they believe you cost too much. For first-generation students, underrepresented minorities, and low-income families it was less than $10,000 a year (this is a growing demographic and opportunity for colleges).
Questions To Consider
As you seek to address the pricing challenge here are some helpful questions you can ask yourself
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