Colleges are now offering “price-matches” for students, taking cues from the business world to compete in an era of ballooning costs.
Several private universities, attempting to keep pace with the lower tuition of their in-state, public peers, promise to match tuition for students.
Oglethorpe University near Atlanta promises to match the tuition of any state’s major university for students with a GPA above 3.5 and a minimum 1250 SAT or 26 ACT score in an effort to bolster their top tier of students.
Robert Morris University in Pennsylvania notably offers a $3,000 scholarship on top of their price-match with the University of Pittsburgh and Penn State to entice students.
“The Public Price Match Plus is one more way that RMU demonstrates that it is big enough to matter, yet small enough to care,” RMU’s Vice President for enrollment Wendy Beckemeyer said to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
As private universities make these efforts, their public counterparts are responding with their own initiatives.
Southern Illinois University, The University of Nebraska, University of South Dakota, and Central Michigan University all allow students from other states to pay as if they were in-state residents.
Since private university tuition is $20,000 per year higher on average than public state schools, it remains to be seen whether price-matching is a financially sustainable option.
Resulting trends of attendees from both in-state and out-of-state are surprising after price-match programs go into effect. After Southern Illinois University Edwardsville granted in-state tuition to all undergraduates, enrollment from neighboring Missouri nearly doubled while enrollment by Illinois residents fell.
Brick and mortar stores have offered a commensurate type of price-matching since the advent of online retail giant Amazon.
Interestingly, colleges seem to prefer this method rather than long-term efforts to freeze or cut costs. The fact that they are willing to price-match, however, indicates that it is possible to lower costs.
As college sticker prices continue to shock, and online options for higher education continue to expand, it is possible that more colleges will join in the competitive game of price-matching.
Kate Hardiman is a contributor to Red Alert Politics. She is pursuing a master’s in education from Notre Dame University and teaches English and religion at a high school in Chicago.
