The sticker price has gone up considerably but the discounts have gotten bigger, according to the report that the NYTimes cites. (Here is the link to the Times’ article http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/education/despite-rising-sticker-prices-actual-college-costs-stable-over-decade-study-says.html?ref=us)
There must be a reason why the colleges are increasing their sticker price while keeping their real charges the same. I suspect its marketing.
The paper quotes Richard Ekman, president of the Council of Independent Colleges: “Some segment of the public is delighted to know that it costs a large number to go there, but their own son or daughter has received a scholarship.”
Off the top of my head, I can think of two ways to market a school.
One way would be to deliver a great product (education) and have your marketing department get the word out. For example, you could publish data on the jobs your students get. Carnegie Mellon and Georgia Tech are examples of schools that do this. You could put your courses online. Yale does this. (I listen to them, myself.)
Another way to market a school could be to raise your sticker price to make peoople think you are good – which you may or may not be . This approach worries me. I worry that the same leadership that wants to market the school by “implying” that the school is good, want to convince their students that they are learning and do this by advertising their courses as rigorous (or whatever) and convincing their students that they are learning a lot when they are not. (See my post How to Make Calculus Students Believe They Know Calculus When They Don’t) Basically, the scheme here is to convince the student that they can get a great return (education) on a small investment (study) because the professors are such good managers. (Many schools that same to take this approach are careful not to give out real data though.)
It’s not marketing that worries me. It is that I have a hunch that too many times marketing determines education. That’s bad.
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