Anya Cohen
Managing Editor
In an attempt to attract more students and make higher education more accessible, Ashland University will drop its undergraduate tuition by $10,000 for the 2014-2015 academic year.
Although the tuition cut will result in less student financial aid and grants, the university’s price drop from $28,908 to $18,908 will make the school one of the least expensive four-year private institutions throughout the entire Midwest.
“Over the past decade. everyone in higher education has danced around the subject of the rising cost of college,” said Ashland University President Fred Finks in a press release. “Yet few have been willing to tackle the issue and the complications involved.”
According to Finks’ press release, many students and parents are deterred by “sticker shock” when they see the marketed price for college tuition. By lowering their sticker price, there will be more transparency in the cost of an Ashland University education, so students and their families will have a more realistic idea of what they will be paying.
According to The Huffington Post, very few students pay the full tuition for their college education, with 71 percent of undergraduate students in the United States receiving some form of financial aid. At Ashland University, 98 percent of students currently receive financial aid. While the tuition change will result in fewer students receiving scholarships, the overall cost should still be lower for most students.
“One of the great things about what Ashland has done…is to publically present a lower cost,” said the president of the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Ohio, C. Todd Jones, in an interview with The Cleveland Plain Dealer. “Those institutions catch the public’s attention in their target market… Ashland has decided to change their tuition model and I am pretty confident they are going to be successful.”
By lowering their tuition cost, the nearly 6,000-student university in Ashland, Ohio is joining a slow moving trend started by Concordia University in St. Paul, Minn., which, for the 2013-2014 academic year, also dropped their tuition price by $10,000. Since Concordia’s tuition decrease, the University has seen a 30 percent increase in applicants. Other institutions that have decreased tuition include Sewanee: The University of the South in Sewanee, Tenn. and Muskingum University in New Concord, Ohio.
The College of Wooster does not plan to follow suit and would not comment on Ashland University’s decision.
“It’s not really appropriate for Wooster to comment on another institution’s strategy and decisions,” said Associate Vice President of College Relations and Marketing, John L. Hopkins. “Wooster’s situation and Ashland’s are quite different.”