Originally published on February 6, 2019 (Episode 97)
Everyone knows college tuition is a problem. What fewer people know is why. Prices look fixed, but as my guest Mark Salisbury points out, tuition is more like the sticker price on a car: it’s the starting point for negotiation, not the final number. And like going to a Buick dealer and finding everything priced like a Porsche, it often feels arbitrary, confusing, and unfair.
In this conversation, Salisbury and I unpack the myths and realities of tuition. We talk about why the school your child attends might not matter as much as you think, how the “information problem” leaves families in the dark, and why understanding actual tuition offers is the first step toward solving the crisis. Along the way we discuss TuitionFit, the platform he founded to crowdsource real tuition data, and what happens when transparency enters a system designed to obscure.
About the Guest
Mark Salisbury is co-founder and CEO of TuitionFit, an online platform that collects and shares real tuition offers to help families and institutions alike better understand the true cost of college. He previously served as Director of Institutional Research at Augustana College. Salisbury is a leading voice in rethinking higher education access and affordability, and this is his third appearance on Historically Thinking.
For Further Investigation
Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Tuition Rising: Why College Costs So Much (Harvard, 2002)
Dale & Krueger, “Estimating the Payoff to Attending a More Selective College” (NBER Working Paper, 2002)
HuffPost summary of Dale & Krueger’s findings: “Why Where You Go to College Doesn’t Matter”
“A ‘Fit" Over Rankings: Why College Engagement Matters More Than Selectivity”, Challenge Success, Stanford Graduate School of Education (October 2018)
Listen & Discuss
Why is tuition more like buying a car than paying a bill?
How much does the “fit” of a college matter compared to its ranking?
Would transparency in tuition offers reshape higher education?
If this conversation made you rethink college costs, pass it along to someone staring down tuition bills.
