Rosemont College in Pa. cuts tuition by 43 percent

Rosemont College – a small, private liberal arts college just outside of Philadelphia – announced today that it will reduce tuition by 43 percent beginning next year. This will drop the total cost for the 2016-2017 academic year from $46,020 this year to $30,000 next year.

Hirsh emphasized that financial aid and merit scholarships would still be available to Rosemont students. She says most schools have been spending a larger percentage of their institutional dollars to fund student aid in order to compensate for the tuition prices for most students.

Unlike most college tuition resets, Rosemont’s will result in actual cost savings for every current student at the college.

Officials say the college wanted to help families who thought the school was out of their price range.

“Our research tells us that in the past, families have overlooked us based on sticker price alone”. “They simply don’t know that now”. The college located in Rosemont, Pennsylvania made the announcement Wednesday morning. Instead, colleges discount the price through a package of grants and scholarships, which are nothing more than discounts off of the sticker price. Cabrini College in 2012 decreased its price tag 12.5 percent and has kept a promise to keep tuition and fees below $30,000.

“We want to be an accessible choice for families”, Hirsh said. They enroll an outsize proportion of wealthy students, sit on multibillion-dollar endowments and have no trouble attracting applicants. “So Rosemont College is announcing that we are no longer going to play this game”, Hirsh said.

“It’s great for the college”, Urmson said.

While Hirsh said the college would like to grow – and could accommodate 600 to 650 undergraduates – that is not the motivator for the decision.

The college pledges the change will come with no impact to the quality of education.

She said they know that many families cross Rosemont off of their college lists as soon as they see the published tuition price. The schools provided aid to 89 percent of their freshmen on average, up from 80 percent in 2003, the study found.

“Because we’re small, we’re able to be nimble”, he said. Rosemont is the first college in the Philadelphia region to reduce its tuition this dramatically.

Hirsh says the costs for colleges have been outpacing the inflation rate because of what she calls the broken model. After the tuition reset, the rate will fall to 18 percent. “Students who qualify for financial aid and academic scholarships will still receive them, but they will be based on the new, true tuition price of $18,500 rather than $32,620”.

Rosemont is also reducing the cost of room and board by 14%. In the last few years, at least a dozen schools have announced these so-called tuition resets, including Utica College in New York, Ashland University in Ohio and Converse College in South Carolina.

“I hope this starts a national trend that makes college affordable for more students”, Robinson said. And to ensure the scheme didn’t hurt their bottom line schools ratcheted up the sticker price to bring in enough net-tuition revenue -the money earned from students after schools provide aid – to offset the discount.

She hopes more schools consider a change in discounting practices. “There should be a better transparency about the whole thing”. Once a women-only college, it became co-ed in 2009.