Tuition Rates at American Universities – More Noise than Actual Information

A timely piece from the Washington Post:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/tuition-is-now-a-useless-concept-in-higher-education/2016/08/19/678e74ec-3261-11e6-8758-d58e76e11b12_story.html

“At Ivy Leagues and top liberal arts colleges, whose tuition announcements get lots of attention, the tuition is only a “sticker price.” The majority of families whose children attend these elite schools pay less, as determined by their level of financial need. Increases to tuition matter only for the full-payers. For those on financial aid, changes to aid policies, not to tuition, are what matter. These policies get little public attention or transparency….
Economists talk about the ratio of signals to noise. Efficiency requires that the meaningful signals in a communication far outweigh any accompanying noise. “Tuition” is almost all noise, no signal. Or, we might say, it is sound and fury, signifying next to nothing.”