"When it comes to the cost of college, we may have reached the tipping point.
According to a recent report in The New York Times, several colleges contacted applicants they hadn’t heard from after the official May 1 deadline to accept an admissions offer to see if they wouldn’t like to reconsider. Private schools, including Hampshire College in Massachusetts and Ursinus College in Pennsylvania, sent e-mails and texts to students after the point at which they were supposed to have put down a deposit.
According to the Times, “The messages all hinted at a particular question: Might a larger discount prompt you to come here after all?”
Colleges have been in the habit of negotiating for some time. They have acted a little bit like airlines where everyone seems to pay a slightly different price for the same product. Airlines don’t ask for your tax returns before determining what you’ll pay, but the system for determining who pays what is similarly oblique." …
http://nypost.com/2017/06/01/the-first-crack-in-the-us-college-cartel/