Why don't wealthy students protest tuition hikes?

webhappy
Sat, 19 Nov 2011 02:23:37 +0000

Nick, I agree with most of what you’re saying, but I think you underestimate how price-sensitive prospective students are. My impression is that UC-B students should be capable of getting half to full tuition scholarships at competing schools. Increasing tuition by $10,000/yr might be enough for these kids to choose the other school.

For people who come from poor families (or look poor on the FASFA), UC-B is clearly behind all the top privates (the top 10 or so private schools have extremely generous fin aid programs that should make them cheaper than UC-B). For these kids, it would be extremely unlikely for them to choose UC-B over the rich private school. For the kids who come from really wealthy families, they would also choose a private school over UC-B (if they’re rich enough to not worry about the cost of tuition, they probably plan on coasting on their parents’ money and UC-B has a rep for having to work hard). Thus, UC-B is most competitive for students whose families make enough to not qualify for financial aid but are sensitive enough to the cost of tuition. Every time you raise tuition faster than the private competitors, you will lose more of these cross-admit battles.