Coe College's new $31,850 tuition is less than the aid its average student already received

Coe College was collecting its posted tuition from nobody. Not one student paid full price in the 2023-24 academic year, and average financial aid per student topped $40,000, according to the Seoul Economic Daily ^[9][10]. A cut of about 45% to $31,850 implies an old sticker near $57,900 ^[7][18][2]. If all of that aid was grant money, the average award was a discount of roughly 69% ^[4]. It was also more than $8,150 larger than the entire new price ^[1]. The revenue Coe gives up directly is whatever some families were paying above $31,850. The report gives only averages, so it does not show how those payments were spread.

David Hayes, Coe's president, said the old price felt burdensome to students and put them off applying at all ^[8]. At Carroll College, President Jennifer Glowienka said the new figure sits near what students would really end up paying and lets Carroll compete with public universities in other regions ^[5]. The Wall Street Journal reported Carroll's 40% cut. If that cut applies to the full $26,800 in tuition and fees, Carroll's old price was about $44,700 ^[3][4][3]. Both presidents describe a posted price that drives applicants away before any aid offer reaches them ^[2].

For cash, there are three ways this can go. In the first, applications rise, net tuition per student holds and revenue grows with headcount. In the second, most of the new applicants still need deep aid, so the college keeps discounting below the new sticker and needs more students just to stand still. The worst case is a flat applicant pool. The college has then cut the price for its higher-paying families and gained no students.

I think the first case is more likely at colleges built like Coe, where nobody paid the old sticker and the cut mostly moves the advertised price toward the billed one. The counter-thesis is the logic colleges priced on for years: a high price signalled educational quality and standing ^[11]. A college that moves toward public in-state tuition ^[14] may lose applicants who take a high price as a sign of quality. The view is wrong if enrollment stays flat in the first classes at the new prices, or if net tuition per student falls below the pre-cut level.

The report describes private colleges in general moving to prices closer to what students pay ^[1]. It also says the change began largely at small private colleges ^[6]. Its elite example is only a proposal, and Cornell's version pairs a possible tuition cut with merit-based scholarships ^[12]. Merit scholarships are discounts off the posted price, so that version keeps discounting while lowering the sticker. Brett Schrader, a vice president at the consulting firm EAB, said colleges are redrawing pricing to compete for families' attention as well as against rival schools ^[13].

In Korea, holding the price flat by policy has not filled seats. Private universities there have frozen tuition since 2009, and since 2012 freezes and cuts have been tied to government funding ^[15]. With the school-age population shrinking ^[16], private universities nationwide were 29,535 students short of their admission quotas in 2022 ^[17].