50 Great Colleges Offering Tuition Discounts

50 Great Tuition Discount Colleges For 2014

Last year at about this time I published a list of 50 well-regarded colleges that had reported to the National Association of College Admissions Counseling that they had not filled up their freshman classes, despite the traditional May 1st deadline passing. These schools were thus hungry for students and were offering cash rewards to acceptable applicants.

NACAC's  new 2014 "College Openings Update" list is out and there are a whopping 470 colleges listed as still urgently seeking either freshman or transfers students. This large and growing list of colleges that are unable to attract enough students is an alarming reminder of how troubled and inefficient the market for higher education is in the U.S. The vast majority of colleges continue to engage in "prestige" pricing, but ultimately are forced to quietly offer deep discounts in an attempt to fill up their classes. Then, when even that doesn't work, hundreds report that they still can't find enough "customers."

Economics 101 tells us that either college admissions officers and their consultants are inept, or more likely, that the supply of schools offering college degrees needs to drastically shrink. But don't hold your breath waiting for colleges to go bankrupt en masse; history shows that these government subsidized institutions can linger on for years even when their financial statements bleed red ink. [If you want to see the Forbes Financial Health Grade of your Alma-mater, click here.]

As 18th century British nobleman Baron Rothschild once said, the time to buy is "when there's blood in the streets." He was referring to stocks, but the same holds true for those in the market for college bargains.