NPR: How private colleges are like cheap sushi
While the sushi reference is a bit of a reach, in my opinion,1 nevertheless an interesting piece about the give-and-take of private colleges trying to price2 their “product” as a luxury good (hint: it’s not a very transparent process). The following blurb regarding one possible casualty of such caught my attention (emphasis mine):
In recent years there’s been a lot of attention to the issue of undermatching. This is the finding that a majority of highest-achieving but low-income students fail to apply to a single competitive college. Even when financial need means that they would pay little or nothing to attend a school like Harvard or Stanford, these students are instead choosing non-selective schools that tend to have a lower advertised price.
Marvin Mathew is a first-generation American who grew up with a single mom in New York City. Though he was a strong student, he applied only to community colleges as a freshman. “I had this assumption that everything was too expensive, why even try?” The high sticker prices at private schools, he says, did a lot to turn him off.
If you understand basic marketing and psychology, there isn’t anything here that will blow your mind. But there are a number of references to comparative studies — you seem to get what you think you paid for — in this piece that I’ll be sure to reference next year.