Let’s be honest: Higher education has a trust problem, and pricing is a major reason why. A group of us, enrollment management leaders from public and private four-year institutions, believe it’s time to say plainly what the data now confirm: The way we price college has become too confusing, too opaque and too easy for students and families to experience as unfair. The good news is that we now have a much clearer understanding of what is driving that distrust and what needs to change.
We say this not as outsiders, but as people who have spent our careers dedicated to college access, affordability and completion. We’ve run large, complex enrollment management operations, wrestled with the tension between mission and margin, and worked every day to help more students and families gain access to the promises of postsecondary education. For the last year, we’ve joined a group of other like-minded enrollment management leaders from across the country to understand why public trust in higher education remains stubbornly low and what it will take to rebuild it.
New national research from Strada Education Foundation, based on focus groups and surveys of more than 5,000 students, parents and members of the public, makes the problem stark and unmistakable: Fewer than half of students and parents say they trust colleges to charge them a fair price. The link between confusion and distrust is direct. Respondents who found the financial aid process confusing were significantly more likely to believe colleges care more about making money than educating students.
We need to move beyond the back-and-forth about whether trust is as low as it seems and instead focus on providing what students and families say they want: clarity and predictability.
To be clear, institutions didn’t create this confusion alone. For decades, changes in state funding for higher education combined with declining purchasing power of federal aid have left students and families to pay more of the cost themselves. That in turn has left institutions scrambling to fill the gap with higher sticker prices and deep discounts. Students and families have adapted in their own ways to this model, buying in to the idea that scholarships are proof that they are getting a good deal even when net price is the only number that matters. None of that excuses where we’ve landed, but it helps explain how we got here.
Students are opting out of college before they ever apply, partly because they overestimate the costs and partly because they’ve lost so much trust in the system itself. Students and families have become increasingly debt averse, sometimes so much so that they forgo the benefits that a manageable amount of responsible borrowing could yield.
The encouraging news is that students and families are clear about what they want, and we, as a sector, can deliver on it. The same research that documents the trust deficit also points toward solutions. When asked, students and families consistently prioritized price clarity, transparency and predictability above all else, even before additional public funding.
They want to know what college will cost before they commit, and they want consistency in that price throughout their enrollment. They want a pricing structure that provides assurances of the total price for their degree or credential, as well as assurances that the price they pay today will track along a predictable pathway to the price they will pay in later years.
None of these are unreasonable asks, but they will require more of institutions. Price confusion has grown for years, and it won’t be solved overnight; solutions will look different at each institution. What works at a large public research university won’t necessarily translate to a small private liberal arts college or a regional comprehensive institution serving mostly adult learners. The principles we’re releasing this week—developed over the past year by a group of enrollment management leaders from across the country, and endorsed by the American Council on Education, the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, the National Association for College Admission Counseling, the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, EdTrust, the National Student Loan Defense Network, the Century Foundation, and many others—were intentionally written at a high level for exactly that reason. They’re not a compliance checklist, but rather a starting point for the hard work of enrollment management reform.
The framework consists of five themes: access and affordability, transparent pricing, sustained aid through graduation, clear value, and the transparent use of student information. How any given institution brings those commitments to life will depend on its mission, market and financial realities.
Here’s what acting on this could look like in practice: An institution focused on transparent pricing could adjust its tuition or tuition discount rate to better communicate the true cost. Another could publish a four-year price guarantee at admission, or provide a single all-in annual price that encompasses tuition, fees, grants and scholarships. Still others could redesign their financial aid offers to help students better understand and compare costs across colleges. Institutions focused on access, affordability and financial aid sustainability might offer multiyear aid guarantees or cohort pricing that lock in costs over the length of a program. And those focused on the responsible use of student data could publish what information is collected during recruitment and how it factors into admissions and financial aid decisions, reassuring families that institutions are being open about their practices.
Career opportunities and financial security top the list of reasons why students pursue a college education. That places real incentive for institutions to deliver on what they’re providing. Some colleges and universities are responding with concrete commitments. A growing number publish program-level earnings outcomes so prospective students can see what graduates of a specific major actually make. Others offer loan-repayment assistance programs that help graduates cover their loan payments if their postgraduation income falls below a set threshold. A smaller set of institutions has gone further still, offering job-placement guarantees that include tuition refunds or additional coursework at no cost if graduates don’t find work in their field. Each of these moves an abstract concept into something a family can verify.
Exploring and implementing these practices will not be easy, and some may result in outcomes that require careful consideration on campus. For example, tuition resets may result in more transparent pricing but could make college more expensive for some students. Institutions that want to act also need cover to do so. Right now, those who try to reform pricing practices largely go at it alone, because even informal coordination with peer institutions raises antitrust concerns. These principles offer a shared framework institutions can adopt individually and collectively, without running afoul of antitrust rules, because they’re about what information students receive and when, not about coordinating prices.
Of course, principles alone won’t be enough. True reform will require alignment across institutions, up, down and through. Boards and presidents need to treat pricing clarity as a strategic priority, not just an enrollment office issue. Enrollment managers, financial aid directors and admissions leaders need to rethink practices that prioritize yield over transparency. Institutions that do this right will need to go further than improve communications; most crucially, it will require the talents and expertise of chief financial officers to build financial models that deliver the predictability and clarity students are asking for.
Higher education is at a crossroads: We can wait for lawmakers and markets to force change through revenue-restricting mandates that could make institutions less financially viable, ultimately harming students, or we can lead it. The stakes are larger than any individual student or institution. Collectively, getting this right means a better-educated workforce, increased social mobility and the growth of shared civic institutions. Students and families are poised to restore their trust in higher education, but that trust can only be earned through visible and consistent commitments and structural changes.
Luisa Havens Gerardo is vice president for enrollment management at the University of Texas at Arlington. John Haller is faculty and higher ed consultant at the University of Miami. Chuck Knepfle is a higher ed consultant.
