Episode 97: The College Tuition Problem

Well, of course college tuition is a problem--everyone seems to know that. And there are of course lots of reasons why this has occurred. But as with so many matters concerning higher education, it's amazing how poorly understood the problem is particularly by the people who are about to pay the bill. As my guest today Mark Salisbury says, college tuition is like the price of a car–it's not really the actual price, just the beginning of the negotiation. Yet, to continue that metaphor, sometimes it's like going to a Buick dealer and finding that everything is priced like a Porsche.

This is the third conversation I've had with Mark Salisbury. Previously he was Guru of Institutional Research at Augustana College (which was not his real title). Now he's broken free and established his own enterprise, TuitionFit, which is designed to crowd-source information regarding tuition to create a catalog of the prices actually offered to students by colleges. We talk about tuition, why where you go to school doesn't matter as much as parents think, and how to overcome the information problem of tuition.

For Further Investigation

Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Tuition Rising: Why College Costs So Much
A recent study from Stanford finding that the ranking of the school you attend doesn't matter–"A 'Fit' Over Rankings: Why College Engagement Matters More Than Selectivity"
Dale and Krueger's oft-cited study finding that where you go to school doesn't really matter here and a Huff Post column expanding on this idea