Dive Brief:
- Private colleges are giving their highest tuition discounts ever, according to the National Association of College and University Business Officers' 2015 Tuition Discounting Study.
- First-time freshmen attending full-time in the 2015-16 academic year received around a 48.6% discount rate, with the rate for all undergrads around 42.5%, The Chronicle of Higher Education reports.
- Net revenue from incoming freshmen, however, was expected to be only 1%, highlighting the shaky financial picture for the institutions surveyed.
Dive Insight:
Overall, the institutions surveyed saw their enrollments decline a staggering 37.5% between 2014-15 and 2015-16, according to The Chronicle. The situation likely isn't much better among public colleges and universities, which have struggled amid state funding cuts and increasing scrutiny over tuition increases and the value of a degree.
Some elite private institutions, meanwhile, have found themselves under the microscope for their sizable endowments. U.S. Rep. Tom Reed (R-NY) is pushing for these institutions to move their endowment returns to student aid packages, and Bloomberg's report that Harvard's former endowment chief netted $13.8 million for 18 months of compensation means it's likely that attention won't diminish anytime soon.
