Every year, innocent people come to the market to get a bachelor’s degree. Very quickly they are educated on some unwritten rules.
Families often do not pay the listed rates. The school provides a calculator on its website that estimates the amount families will have to pay, but does not guarantee it. Seekers cannot get an actual price quote until their application is approved.
And if a student is considering a school that Manhattanville College In Purchase, New York, something strange can happen when a student asks for an estimated cost and gets the actual cost after acceptance. there is.
These estimates come with a big disclaimer. they could be wrong. As you can imagine, some of these other schools aren’t thrilled with the situation. So why would an institution teaching mathematics and economics give questionable figures?
This question, and its elusive answer, underlies a fundamental question that emerges each admissions season. College applicants and their families face a serious information gap, and those who can do something about it need not rush things. It’s not complicated.
Since 2011, the federal government has required all universities to net price calculator on their website. After entering a set of financial information, the college shopper is presented with an estimate of the amount the college may ask to pay the accepted student.
A net price calculator is much better than nothing. At their best, they prove that college fixed prices are a kind of fiction for many, if not most, students.
However, calculators are often confusing. detail the study pointed out their shortcomings.
Calculator problems aren’t anyone’s fault, they’re everyone’s fault. Governments haven’t set guidelines that are strict enough, indifferent families enter wrong numbers, universities don’t use substandard calculators, and they don’t regularly update the formulas in their tools. yeah. Additionally, while calculators predict financial need based on your income and related assets, they may not attempt to extrapolate so-called merit aid based on what high school students do in and out of the classroom.
William E. Stuib, a technology and financial services industry veteran with six children, including an adopted daughter, said when he first explored this mess as a parent, he — like any parent wrote about Two weeks ago — he thought he could build a better tool. Today, over 250 schools have licensed his net price calculator and his company. college raptorprovides information such as rankings on consumer websites.
And what about those competitor price comparisons? College Raptor also generates them for client schools.
This is how that comparison works. If you want to compare your client’s school to a competitor who also happens to be your client, pull the estimated price from the other school’s net price calculator (run by College Raptor).
College Raptor uses federal data and other proprietary mechanisms when competing schools are not clients. Then, according to its marketing materials, “advanced AI” takes over. Clients get a list of comparable schools and can choose the more expensive ones to show to prospective students. They can reveal the prices of these competitors on the results page of their net price calculator and on the so-called certificate they send to enrolled students.
Three of the five comparison schools in Manhattanville (Marist and Mercy Universities in New York and Drew University in New Jersey) declined to comment or were unwilling to criticize their competitors’ tactics. His other two had some dissenting opinions.
Drew Aromando, vice president for admissions at Rider University in Lawrence Township, New Jersey, said in an email. “There are too many variables inherent in the financial aid process to give students/families an estimate of what one university can expect to receive with financial aid from other institutions.”
Shannon Zottola, vice president of admissions administration at Scranton University in Pennsylvania, said she fears listing competitor prices will deter people from making more purchases. .
“It’s a shame when families write off schools that might be a good fit for them,” she said.
The “notes” that College Raptor provides for schools like Manhattanville, including comparisons, have some caveats, and they’re not even in small font. “These figures are only net price estimates based on information available from College Raptor, have not been verified by Manhattanville College and may be inaccurate,” it reads. “Before finalizing a college decision, we encourage you to review the results of each school’s Net Price Calculator and/or the actual financial aid offer and cost at the school you are considering.”
other place on one of its websites, the company will be a little more specific. “Generally, our models can provide accurate costs within 10-20% of those estimated by actual financial aid reports and college net price calculators,” it said. .
These disclosures are adequate and clear. But if your competitors’ price quotes can be inaccurate, why encourage your client’s school to use them in the first place?
“The fact that our answers aren’t perfect keeps me awake,” Steib said in an interview. “They are better than anything else out there.”
He also said schools that don’t like the way competitors quote prices can contact College Raptor and provide data so they can improve their citations. When I suggested that this might sound as if he was giving the school two bad choices, he disagreed.
“It goes back to the question of what the net price estimate was for in the first place,” he said. “This is a good-faith estimate of how much a student will pay for the school, without the question of being intimidated by the price offered and being denied the best opportunity to apply.”
In fact, there is a good chance the family will see the comparison and find out that the competitive institution they are considering is much cheaper than they thought. It is also possible that a quoted price that is higher than that will keep the family from asking further questions about the competitor.
College Raptor does not believe this is a likely outcome. But I worry for those who haven’t read it or are unfamiliar with the process of trying to pay for higher education. I hope someone has warned you to read every disclaimer you come across in every corner of your life.
On the other hand, if a higher price from a competitive school is listed on the actual award letter, the family may conclude that the school offering admission is the low-cost leader. may be reluctant to appeal an offer of assistance and demand a better price. You can save.
So who benefits most from the comparison? Paula Bishopan accountant and financial assistance advisor in Kirkland, Washington, who sent me a quote for a competitor in Manhattanville.
Troy L. Cogburn, Manhattanville’s vice president of registration and marketing, said he was just trying to help. “College Raptor is a reliable resource,” he said. “We are trying to provide as much information as possible to prospective students.”
He said he didn’t like to use the word “competitor” and that the other schools Manhattanville listed were similar, not necessarily because their pools of applicants overlapped.
Manhattanville’s tactics are, among other things, a reminder that it can be a tough, high-risk market. If you’re after an undergraduate education that can cost five times as much as his in a car, spend more time questioning degree dealers who tout their four years of experience.
The College Raptor story has a neat ending. Last year, Citizens Financial Group, which has a big business in education loans, acquired the company at an undisclosed price. College Raptor reinforces “our commitment to financial empowerment,” according to the bank.
