07-31-2012, 02:34 PM
$tevie wrote:
I don't know how to explain it right, I guess.
I am a student. I say, thank you but I have chosen to attend Artsy Fartsy U instead of Dollar Sign Institute. Whereupon Dollar Sign Institute says, what if we lob $5,000 off the tuition? So the student goes back to Artsy Fartsy U and says, Dollar Sign just slashed another $5,000 off my tuition. To which Artsy Fartsy has no comeback because they do not have the means to arbitrarily lower someone's tuition.
Obviously there's some sort of confusion because my question was on how an institution (non-profit) handles covering the cost of the scholarship and not how a for-profit simply "slashes" prices. Though in both cases, the cost of the discount or scholarship would have to be covered somehow.
$tevie wrote: Scholarship packages are carefully worked out based on merit and need and the college's ability to cover the student's tuition via money assigned for that purpose. Also on how many students are coming who are paying full freight which helps grease the wheels, too. There isn't any cash lying around to cover such a spontaneous and costly sales technique.
This is more along the lines of what I am asking. My understanding has been that most institutions (NP) operate via their endowment as the actual monies in the form of tuition is not enough to cover the costs of operating the institution. Which goes back to how scholarships are treated - is the cost of the university-sponsored scholarship just absorbed by the university? Or is that cost funded from some external source?