Colleges agree to cut tuition expenses for students who inquire

Scared off by a $21,000 price tag for tuition, room and board at Davis & Elkins College, Leslie Bennett enrolled instead at West Virginia's more affordable Fairmont State College last fall.

Yet just one semester later, Bennett transferred to Davis & Elkins, a tiny West Virginia independent with an enrollment of 650.

The reason? Like the sticker cost on a car and the fare charged for an airline seat, the price at Davis & Elkins -- and many other schools -- is subject to change -- and getting a break on the cost may be as simple as asking.

That's especially true at private schools, which are interested in students who will diversify their classes and are increasingly willing to lower their tuition to get them.

Davis & Elkins, for instance, discounted Bennett's tuition in part because she is a first-generation college student. Along with work-study and state and federal grants, the money provided to Bennett allows her to receive a tuition-free education.

"I figured I'd get some help," she said. "But not this much."

Tuition discounting differs from need-based financial aid in that it is based on factors other than a student's ability to pay.

"Schools allocate resources to discount tuition because they want to shape their class," explained Lucie Lapovsky, the president of Mercy College in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.

"They are willing to spend money to get certain kinds of students who are not likely to enroll in the numbers that they want at their published price -- whether it be for diversity, whether it be for student leaders, whether it be for students with higher academic ability, musicians, dancers, whatever."

Like Bennett, many students and parents draw the wrong conclusion from the figures posted in college guidebooks.

"People see the original sticker price, if you will, and say, 'I can't afford to send my child to a private school,"' said Bryan Marshall, a spokesman for Millikin University in Decatur, Ill.

Marshall and others urge sticker-shocked parents and students to ask colleges if a published price is negotiable.

Applicants to schools where discounting is available usually aren't aware of the practice until they start looking more closely at financial aid packages.

The secret to learning about available discounts, said Lapovsky, is simply asking.

"Tell them that the sticker price is daunting and that you can't afford it," she said. "And then ask 'What are the chances of getting financial aid?"'

A survey published in March by the National Association of College and University Business Officers found discounts on 39 percent of the tuition paid to private colleges and universities. By comparison, independent schools discounted slightly more than 26 percent of tuition in 1990.

Private colleges have the option of simply lowering their price by siphoning from endowments, operational costs and even the full tuition paid by other students.

Subsidized by public money, state-funded colleges and universities generally do not discount tuition. State schools instead offset costs through scholarships provided primarily by outside sources.

But even with scholarship money and state-subsidized tuition, public schools sometimes can't compete with the savings offered by independents.

Impressed with Brent Smoyer's academic credentials, Nebraska Wesleyan lured him away from the University of Nebraska three years ago by discounting its tuition to a rate below that of the state's largest school.

"I just got a better deal," said Smoyer, now a Nebraska Wesleyan junior.

The president of the Council of Independent Colleges acknowledged that subsidizing students for reasons other than financial need "makes some people foam at the mouth."

"Some people say the use of institution funds to lower the sticker price for middle-class kids is a bad idea, that it should all be dedicated to the low-income kids," said Richard Ekman, who oversees the council, a consortium of small colleges and universities.

"I don't think that's right; I think there should be lots of ways to diversify a class."

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