Interestingly in the case of CWRU, they had a large price increase in 2020 to R/B (it cost $20k that year) and have been lowering the R/B charges since. The R/B charges for this upcoming year will be $17k.
At the same time, they’ve been lowering R/B, they’ve been increasing tuition. From $56k in 2020, to $61k in 2023. So dropping R/B by $3k and increasing tuition by $5k.
Feels a bit like re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic in terms of how CWRU is managing COA…but I am curious as to whether this is CWRU specific or if other schools are also having these pricing perambulations (or just straight up increases tied to inflationary environment that are above and beyond the expected price increases).
ETA: I think the book LowerEd by Dr. McMillan Cottom discusses in some depth the severing of price from quality of higher education. Basically, almost all schools increased their prices once they realized that for many prospective students/families higher price seemed to indicate higher quality (regardless of who was charging high prices). Which is one of the reasons prices for all type of higher education soared, especially for online/distance learning.
ETA2: I think my tuition #s are inaccurate but they are the ones showing on the website. Sorry, the tuition graph shown above is accurate which makes the increases even more notable $52k in 2020, to $61k in 2023.