Is “yeah right” your first thought upon reading this headline?
Not so fast, here’s what a recent article in the Wall Street Journal had to say.
Hundreds of schools, including Stanford University and Duke University, are offering tuition discounts, prepaid plans with extra incentives and even scholarships for families that put money aside for higher education in 529 plans.
The author details several programs helping parents leverage their college nest eggs for preferred tuition treatment from select schools.
This speaks to an obvious but still noteworthy topic, colleges need students.
Today’s college-bound students are more geographically mobile and better-prepared, academically and socially, than ever before, and their increasingly sophisticated taste as to where and with whom they attend college is due in no small part to the internet.
The internet provides social interaction with peers from different states, countries and cultural backgrounds. It also provides a wealth of information on virtually every college in the United States.
As students nationwide become more discriminating about which college they apply to, competition between schools increases. What we are seeing now is the first wave of innovation towards a more personalized college experience. It’s “College2.0″ if you’re a web geek like me.
With school profiles, student course reviews and even free virtual classes all just a mouse click away for would-be applicants, colleges are expanding their outreach activities with custom academic programs and other incentives designed to maximize their appeal with the students they’d like to see on their campus next fall.
Obviously, which school your child attends is a very personal issue, and there are plenty of folks with limited choices for one reason or another. But for parents who still have plenty of time left to save, setting a reasonable college savings goal and sticking to it could go farther than ever by the time Freshman year rolls around, as competition between the schools continues to heat up.
Tags: college2.0