In general, the demand for a college education is fairly inelastic. Higher average prices don't tend to reduce the number of students going to college all that much. But I've often wondered (I wonder often), in a highly competitive market, whether a single school lowering their tuition would result in a significant enough increase in quantity demanded to offset the revenue loss per student in tuition. It looks like Belmont Abbey College in North Carolina is going to run a test for us.
If you’re a parent with college-age kids, you probably experienced sticker shock the first time you checked out tuition costs. And maybe even a few times after that.
The College Board says that the average yearly cost for a four-year public university for an in-state student is now $8,240. For a private college, it’s $28,500 per year.
William Thierfelder, president of Belmont Abbey College, says that most students are so discouraged with what he calls the "sticker price" of higher education that they don’t even consider applying to a school they think is beyond their families’ means.
