bargaining with private colleges over tuition

[rob in cal]

   So I'm wondering if anyone out there has tried bargaining with private colleges to get a better tuition deal for themselves or their children.   In our case there is a private college nearby that my daughter is interested in going to but we'd like to see the price difference between it and the local state university come down a bit more ( even after factoring in a transfer student scholarship and grants), so I wonder what would happen if we said to the admissions department, hey my daughter is pretty close to accepting the offer to study here, but our budget is still a few thousand per year below the final number, can we make something happen?

[Pigeon]

You can generally request that your financial aid package be reviewed.  I know some people who have tried it and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.  It depends far too much on the circumstances of the individual and the school to generalize.  If they have a bunch of students in the rejected pool who are equally qualified as your kid, they don't have much incentive to come down more.

[SC93]

As with anything in life, all they can say is "NO"!

[Laura33]

Just going in and saying, hey, look what these guys gave us is not likely to work.  Colleges have limited aid budgets, and far more kids (all of whom are deserving) competing for those limited funds than they can afford to pay for.  Because of that scenario, they take very seriously their obligation to be fair; they don't want to create an appearance of favoritism, where they throw money at people willy-nilly and without any sound basis -- that's the kind of situation that can result in "oh, look, we gave fantastic aid for all these white males, and ignored the women and minorities who asked," which generally doesn't go over well for oh-so-many reasons.  So most colleges are going to have a pretty concrete appeals process, with well-defined reasons for giving more.  And "school X gave me a better package" probably doesn't qualify -- maybe unless School X is Harvard and your kid is someone the school really, really wants (but if that were the case, they probably would have offered more up front).

OTOH, if you can present some substantive information that would support the change, and during the course of that slip in that of course she'd far prefer to go there but the other school came up with an EFC that was $XX less, it might work.  For ex., when I was applying back in the dark ages, I had narrowed it down to two SLACs that were about $5K apart in tuition.  The two schools came up with very similar aid packages -- federal loans, some need-based grants -- but the lower-priced one participated in the National Merit Scholarship program and so offered me a $2K scholarship on top of that, meaning the other school would have cost me about $7K more.  I went back to the second school to tell them that I basically couldn't afford it on their offered aid, and I mentioned the extra scholarship.  That school did not participate in the National Merit program, but they nevertheless suddenly found another $2K in grant money (but they still didn't make up the $5K tuition delta, and I went to the cheaper school anyway).

Similarly, while I was in school, my mom went on sabbatical, and so her income was cut in half, but since the aid figures were based on the prior year's tax returns, those numbers stayed the same (and tuition had gone up by $1K to boot).  As a result, their aid award assumed that fully half of my mom's gross pay would be available to cover my college costs (they also assumed my stepdad paid for everything else so her income was basically "free money" - thanks, sexism!).  So I appealed that award, presenting them information about the cut in pay and my mom's other financial obligations/arrangements, and they increased the award quite a bit.

Tl;dr:  If you want to negotiate more aid, you need to give them an actual financial reason to justify it -- something they overlooked or misinterpreted.

[Cranky]

I did that with my oldest dd's school. Her first choice was one of the Seven Sisters, and her f/a package was quite nice, but it was not the best offer that she had gotten.

I did just call them up and point out that it was her first choice school, but not her best offer, and that the $$ mattered. They came up with another $2000.

I will say that she was a *highly* desirable student, with outstanding grades and test scores and a Merit Finalist and she interviewed well, and while we are certainly middle class, we are not so middle class that we don't represent the "economic diversity" that such schools are looking for these days.

Also, this was a school that is, frankly, awash in scholarship money, so that had it to give away, and that's not true of every private college.

[marion10]

We did with my daughter- she got a better scholarship offer from another school and we faxed a copy of the offer and they increased her scholarship.

[MrsPete]

Tried.
Failed. 

The state school she attended had a much stronger academic reputation anyway. 
No regrets. 

[Ricksun]

Like someone else above said, it depends on how desirable the student is compared to the schools average. 

One thing to definitely note is that financial aid is disproportionately awarded to incoming freshman students at nearly every college/university.  As you progress as a sophomore, Junior, and Senior, the school will likely reduce the aid eligibility or keep the aid the same while increasing tuition.  Don't make your decision based solely on the first year costs, because they will likely change, somewhat significantly, in the following 4 years.

[clarkfan1979]

Like someone else above said, it depends on how desirable the student is compared to the schools average. 

One thing to definitely note is that financial aid is disproportionately awarded to incoming freshman students at nearly every college/university.  As you progress as a sophomore, Junior, and Senior, the school will likely reduce the aid eligibility or keep the aid the same while increasing tuition.  Don't make your decision based solely on the first year costs, because they will likely change, somewhat significantly, in the following 4 years.

+1

[MrsPete]

Like someone else above said, it depends on how desirable the student is compared to the schools average. 

Another way of saying that:  You're more likely to be successful if your superstar child is going to attend a lackluster college. 

That was the situation for which we attempted to bargain -- and they just weren't interested in negotiating (and I'm a pretty good negotiator normally).  Towards the end of our discussions they told me, "You have to realize, we're talking about a private education."  At that point I knew we were going to be unsuccessful, so I told them what I really thought:  "Yes, but we are willing to overlook that, if the price is right." 

As I said above, no regrets.  We tried, we failed.  She was much better placed (at a lower price) at the state school.  She flourished, graduated on time, and in the year and a half since graduation has already earned more than double with we paid for her education.  No, more than "no regrets", we are thrilled with the choices we made with our oldest.   

One thing to definitely note is that financial aid is disproportionately awarded to incoming freshman students at nearly every college/university.  As you progress as a sophomore, Junior, and Senior, the school will likely reduce the aid eligibility or keep the aid the same while increasing tuition.  Don't make your decision based solely on the first year costs, because they will likely change, somewhat significantly, in the following 4 years.

Yes, this is excellent advice -- and it's something that the private schools do.  They offer a scholarship for freshman year only ... so the student attends, learns his way around, is doing well ... but sophomore year is more expensive because the scholarship's gone, so he has to choose between staying at the school where he's been successful OR paying more /maybe borrowing. 

Think long-term. 

[h82goslw]

Like someone else above said, it depends on how desirable the student is compared to the schools average. 

One thing to definitely note is that financial aid is disproportionately awarded to incoming freshman students at nearly every college/university.  As you progress as a sophomore, Junior, and Senior, the school will likely reduce the aid eligibility or keep the aid the same while increasing tuition.  Don't make your decision based solely on the first year costs, because they will likely change, somewhat significantly, in the following 4 years.

ricksun's post is the best one in this thread....and it's something I had not explicitly realized until I read it.  My kid's number one school was Syracuse University.....was absolutely crazy in love with the school.  Received a damn good scholarship package that was within $4K of her second choice, which was a state school.  We went on "accepted student day" and went to see financial aid counselor and told him state school was still a lot cheaper. Next day he sent us an email saying he awarded another $3K to convince her to come.  I called him to talk about subsequent years of financial aid, and he said "it was more or less guaranteed".  That scared me....and knowing that tuition would increase at 3 times the rate of inflation I advised my kid of the financial impact of outbound years.
Then our state passed a "free college  tuition" law and that reduced tuition around  $6K per year.
Kid knew right away what the decision had to be. It helps that it's THE top state school.
She wasn't too happy at first, but she's loving the school now.

This post was waaaay long winded but point is, if the school wants your kid they'll find more money if you ask. 

[teen persuasion]

Sometimes appealing the FA offer works, sometimes it doesn't.

DD1's first choice school gapped her 50% of our income, so she appealed.  They simply offered more loans.  When we rejected that, they suggested she'd be happier somewhere else.  She was very happy at her second choice, which fully met her need (and was closer to home, which made things much easier for us).

DS2 had a good aid package from his first choice school, but his second choice school's package was better.  He contacted first choice school and said he'd prefer to attend there, but the other school's better offer might make the decision for him.  Could they match it?  They asked to see the other offer, he faxed it, and they beat it!  That school was also great about helping him find extra aid when switching majors meant he needed to do a few summer courses to stay on track.

[badassprof]

I teach at a small liberal arts college, and I can assure you that a lot of colleges are scrambling for students at the moment, given demographics. You may be able to negotiate a package, particularly if your daughter has offers from other colleges. It is one of the reasons I encourage students to apply to multiple schools, even if they have their heart set on just one. Much like jobs, when you have multiple offers, the places will tend to compete.

[MrsPete]

DD1's first choice school gapped her 50% of our income, so she appealed.  They simply offered more loans.  When we rejected that, they suggested she'd be happier somewhere else.  She was very happy at her second choice, which fully met her need (and was closer to home, which made things much easier for us).

Proof that NOT getting exactly what you want isn't the end of the world. 

[badassprof]

DD1's first choice school gapped her 50% of our income, so she appealed.  They simply offered more loans.  When we rejected that, they suggested she'd be happier somewhere else.  She was very happy at her second choice, which fully met her need (and was closer to home, which made things much easier for us).

Proof that NOT getting exactly what you want isn't the end of the world.

This is so true! I see parents fetishizing the schools that their kids go to and study after study makes clear: it really isn't that important where you go to undergrad, most things considered. There are exceptions, of course, but you can go to a pretty mediocre state school and still get into an ivy league grad program in a competitive field  (I did).  What I encourage parents and students to look at is the career services and internships provided by colleges, and the networking relationships with alums, etc. The value of these are not to be underestimated.

[Gondolin]

Another anecdote. I was able to do this but, having better offers from PEER institutions while being an attractive student is key. My university didn't care at all that Pitt offered me a free ride but, took notice when Northwestern offered half tuition.