College Benchmarks for Tuition Discounting and Financial Aid (PDF)

The study compares the policies of 33 American colleges and universities and looks closely at trends in discounting tuition and granting and managing financial aid. Respondents were largely directors or other high-level officers of admissions or financial aid. The study helps its readers to answer questions such as: what is the outlook for needs-based aid vs. merit-based? What percentage of students are paying full sticker price and what do financial aid and admissions directors feel will be the trend over the next few years? What do they expect will happen to the gap between the sticker price and the actual price? What is the outlook for trends in international student aid? When colleges increase aid, how are they paying for it? What has been the experience of the financial aid office with focus groups for aid recipients, or with predictive models relating financial aid to accepted offers? How do public and private colleges differ in their perceptions? How do perceptions and policies differ between private colleges in the highest and middle level tuition ranges? What are feelings about the role of the listing Order on the FAFSA form as an indicator of intent to attend the college? What has been the experience of survey participants with direct loans from the college to its students?