Stanford University announced that it will eliminate its $36,000 tuition for students with annual family incomes less than $100,000. Do you think other universities will follow suit? Why or why not?

First, I ‘d like to applaud Stanford University for addressing an issue that’s only gotten worse in the past 15-20 years. I’d also like to thank them for their timing as my youngest son will graduate from high school in the class of 2010 (cool-sounding year, no?).

My son is a bright kid and if he keep his grades up and lays off the video games a bit more he’ll have this type of school knocking on our door. This isn’t wishful thinking– he’s already pre-tested as being easily in the scoring range for the Ivy League schools. Now we don’t necessarily want him to go to Stanford or Brown (who just announced tuition waivers for families making $60,000 and under) because he needs to consider several things when choosing a school including what he’ll be majoring in. At age 15 he’s thinking Aerospace Engineering. That will mean a very specific type of school like the University of Michigan or Purdue University, for example. Also, depending on the size of the academic package offered–will he stay in-state–go out of state? How far does he want to be from home? What size campus?, etc. So, lots to think about.

To answer the question, do I think other universities will follow suit? Why or why not? I’ll answer yes and no–and this is unresearched–just what I’ve picked up in follow-ups to the Stanford announcement and a little bit of information prior to it.

I think some universities will follow suit. They want to remain competitive and they can’t afford to keep shutting the middle class students out with their crazy-high tuitions. Also, students are very reluctant to go into serious debt for 10 or more years following college– during the time when they should be trying to make headway financially.

The universities that don’t follow suit may have myriad reasons for doing so. Perhaps they are smaller and cannot afford to give “free rides” to students. Perhaps they are doing great with more applicants than they can possibly take on and they are turning away droves so why would they encourage even more to apply?

I haven’t really considered this side of the equation because it’s a bit difficult to get out of the mind-set of being a parent with a child on the cusp of going to college.

Tags: 2010, Aerospace Engineering, Brown, colleges/universities, news, Purdue, son, Stanford University, tuition waivers, University of Michigan