More Incoming College Students Are Looking at Price Tags

Some interesting trends are emerging from the bursting of the
higher education bubble. According to a UCLA study, more high
school students than ever are applying to a greater number of
colleges, and fewer of them are attending their first choice,
in part because of price. LA Weekly notes the
numbers:

About 57 percent of freshman headed to their first-choice
campuses in 2013, the lowest reported percentage since researchers
began tracking these things in 1974, the report says.

The proportion of students who said cost was a “very important”
factor in their choice was also at a high point of nearly 46
percent, UCLA reported. That’s a near-15 percentage point increase
in almost 10 years.

Nearly half (almost 49 percent) of the students said financial
aid was “very important” in their quest to receive a college
degree, a number that also represented a historic high, the report
said.

Cost was even more important for first-generation college kids.
About 54 percent of them said the price of their education was
“very important,” UCLA reports.

Kevin Eagan of UCLA’s Cooperative Institutional Research Program
says the new price consciousness means colleges that can reduce
costs will have an edge in the market. Given the importance that
students attach to financial aid, I fear there will instead be
demands for more subsidies via student assistance, which will keep
prices artificially inflated. 

Read the full study
here (PDF).