Danielle Douglas-Gabriel
Appearances
Apple News Today
Why more colleges are offering free tuition
What we're really seeing is colleges signaling to people a little further up the income stream that are not what you'd consider low income and therefore would not necessarily qualify for a lot of the federal and state need-based aid policies, saying to them that, hey, you can go here and you can afford this.
Apple News Today
Why more colleges are offering free tuition
We have what's known as the demographic cliff, what essentially means that there are just going to be fewer high school grads to fill the seats of the many colleges that we have in this country, over 4,000, right? So if you're trying to be competitive for those students, you have to let them know that they can afford to go here.
Apple News Today
Why more colleges are offering free tuition
If you really pair into the kind of financial aid policies at many of these schools, they were already doing this. Middle-income students who could get in had a good chance of not having to take on a lot of debt to complete their education because of how generous the institutional aid is. But that wasn't clear to everybody. You wouldn't find out unless you apply.
Apple News Today
Why more colleges are offering free tuition
So I think these schools are trying to say, hey, apply, see what you can get.
Apple News Today
Why more colleges are offering free tuition
One of the schools I spoke to, which was a small private school in Maine, they weren't paying attention to what Princeton was doing. They were paying attention to what UMass was doing and trying to get the student that would think, well, it's far less expensive for me to go to a public institution like UMass rather than go to your small private liberal.
Apple News Today
Why more colleges are offering free tuition
But they're saying, hey, actually, we're cheaper.
Apple News Today
Why more colleges are offering free tuition
Keep in mind, a lot of these schools admit small numbers of people. So I think the big question is how much impact will these decisions have? Or will they just be at the margins? Or will we see like a total sea change in how the average American is able to afford and pay for college?