I paid almost full price for an MPA at the Maxwell School 17 years ago and it was the best investment I could have ever made for my career. But overall, the overwhelming majority of students do not pay full price. This article explains it well.
Americans think college tuition is rising out of control. But it would be more accurate to say that tuition rates are dishonest and indecipherable. They are distorted by a system that deliberately lists tuition levels much higher than what students p...
www.nationalaffairs.com
Here's a good excerpt if you don't feel like reading the whole thing.
"Nobody in higher education wants to participate in the system of fake prices and fake scholarships anymore, but nobody can figure out how to escape from it. A tale of two colleges — Able and Baker — will show why honest pricing is nearly impossible to sustain in this environment.
Let's say Able College decides to stop publishing a false cost of attendance of $55,000, opting instead to advertise an honest price of $25,000, which is what most of its students actually pay. Nearby Baker College, meanwhile, keeps its sticker price at $55,000, though nobody pays more than $25,000 there, either.
Able's board may think it has done the right thing, and maybe it has. But board members are courting enrollment disaster. When Johnny is admitted to Able, he receives no scholarship; Able has already eliminated the fake $30,000 in tuition it was never able to charge, so it simply asks Johnny to pay $25,000 to attend the school. But when Johnny is admitted to Baker, he receives not only a letter of admission, but a $30,000-per-year "merit scholarship" on cream-colored cardstock with effusive language about his intellect and character (though nothing about his athletic abilities, since that would violate NCAA rules). Baker tells Johnny that his exceptional skill has earned him "$120,000 over four years." Johnny's parents and grandparents proudly tell their friends about "how much money Baker gave to Johnny," and Johnny chooses to attend Baker over Able.
To be clear, the offer is identical in both cases; it's just that Baker's actual annual cost of $25,000 is dressed up in an illusory $30,000 premium and an offsetting $30,000 scholarship. In most cases, Johnny is an unremarkable student, and the same "merit scholarship" letters go out to most of Baker College's admitted students. Johnny and his family might see that the "offer" from Able is the same as Baker's, but they invariably feel that Baker is the more prestigious option because of its (fake) high price, and that Baker "wants Johnny more" because of its generous scholarship offer. Able has unilaterally disarmed itself in the phantom-scholarship wars.
The cultural forces involved are so powerful that even the best institutions with the best of intentions must bend."
