@ephuspitch you might find this thread for the class of 24 tuition exchange helpful.
Hi everyone! First time poster. One of my colleagues suggested to me that TE member schools can reduce tuition to the “set rate“ even after a student has been awarded a full tuition TE scholarship and has started his/her studies at their import institution. Is this really the case? If so, this certainly wouldn’t be fair, as many people I know (including our family) make final University decisions based on the amount of their TE award.
I have scoured all websites, including the TE website, and nowhere does it say that the TE award can fluctuate from year to year once it’s already been awarded. Does anyone know with certainty that once a TE scholarship is awarded (at either full tuition or the set rate) if the award applies for all eight semesters?
Any light you could shed on this issue would be greatly appreciated!
I have never heard of that, and unless it is written in your TE award letter, I would not believe it. If the set rate was reduced by TE (say it went from $41K one year to $40K the next year - then that might be permissible). But as for the school themselves deciding not to issue the full amount, I don’t believe that. If a school were “hurting” financially or made a decision to reduce TE, they would not offer as many spots in the coming year or offer none. Villanova did that this year - they are not offering any TE spots.
Thanks for your reply! Our case is one where my son was awarded a scholarship in a year when they were granting full tuition. According to the TE website, all new applicants are now applying for a “set rate“ scholarship, which is lower than the full award of course. I have questions out to people, but I just wanted to get a feel for whether it would be possible for his full tuition award to change “midstream”. I hope I’m making sense!
Interesting. What does your TE award letter say? I would suspect you are fine (grandfathered in under the original TE) but all new recipients fall under the “set rate”. Let us know what you find out.
The TE letter says “full tuition“ and does not list the specific amount. I hope that holds. I’m waiting to hear back from the TE liaisons. My home institution TE liaison was surprised that they switched to “set rate” and is just as curious as you are about what the import institution has to say! I will keep the board posted.
I assume you are fine; this policy change applies to new applicants. It would be unethical to change mid-program - unless the letter states that this award is subject to review each year (which it sounds like it does not). TE is budgeted for at all schools (import and export). It is an accounting line item. I guess that they are looking down the road and thinking they cannot afford it, so rather than stop offering it for a couple of years, they are pulling back on how much they offer. Out of curiosity, is there a higher OOS tuition rate for this school, and if so, what impact does this have on incoming students? As in Instate student, what would you have to pay assuming a set rate TE, and what about OOS?
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I hope you’re right! I’m waiting to hear from the TE liaison. It’s a private school, so no in-state/out-of-state tuition. I can tell you that we based our decision on our son attending the school on the fact that he was awarded a full tuition TE scholarship. (I don’t want to name schools because I don’t want to come off as bashing it, particularly because our son is extremely happy!). We will deal with whatever the result is, but I agree with you that it would be highly unethical to engage in a “bait and switch” change like that.
I know of a school that changed from full to set rate. This was their reason, when at full they could only award a few awards. With the set they can award many more awards as they also use merit to bridge the difference.
Example: They used to give full, lets say 50 K. Now they give set (I can’t remember what the set amount for this year is but lets say 40K), so they give $10K in TE and $30K in merit to equal the $40K. This way they can give a whole lot more TE awards. Hope that made sense.
As @Intercoastal said I doubt they would change yours now. I hope you get the answer soon and please let us know what you find out.
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I work at a school that made this change; we made it only going forward so it would not impact current TE recipients. The school’s financial aid office should be able to clear it up for you pretty quickly.
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I sincerely hope that is the case, as it really is the only fair thing to do. Still haven’t received an update. When I do, I will post it to the board!
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Haven’t heard back from the TE liaison yet. Giving them through the weekend because they are ramping up for the new semester to begin on Monday.
However, I did notice an interesting change on their TE page on the tuitionexchange dot org website. Yesterday, when I brought this question to the board, the tuition award was listed as “Set Rate”. Today, it is listed as “Other Tuition”.
Never seen that before. Does anyone know what that means?
From my experience, “Other” often means somewhere between set rate and full. So it could be set rate with some merit.
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It took a while to get a hold of somebody, but I am happy to tell the board that the tuition exchange award initially given to the student holds for all eight semesters. Any changes to tuition exchange scholarships only affect future incoming classes.
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Hello. I know this is way after your post. Do you recall around what time in Feb 2023 you got the TE news from Pitt? Thank you.
Last year, they came out the first week of Feb - email received Feb 6
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I don’t remember but I wish we could go back in time and my kiddo would have accepted it.
My son did accept at Pitt and I am not 100% thrilled with them - very hard for him to get into research (physics) whereas Michigan State was going to connect him right away. Courses, people, location are all good, I’m just concerned on the research.
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My daughter received TE from Pitt last year @ Feb 2. Honors notification came out 2/15. Seems like Pitt is late this year.
Good luck!
I remember you from the thread last year but can’t remember where your daughter landed. Hoping things get better for her.