Unmasking College Costs: Challenges in the Era of Differential Tuition Practices

While college affordability continues to be a major concern to individuals, families, legislators, and others across the United States, higher education institutions continue to seek new tuition-based revenue streams, such as the use of Differential Tuition. Differential Tuition (DT) policies are purposeful variations in undergraduate tuition rates. This study focuses on DT at public 4-year, research-intensive institutions (n=143) during the 2015-2016 academic year. The findings reflect communication strategies of DT policies by universities, and the prevalence and variations in use of this growing practice. Factors associated with DT policies are discussed. By describing the prevalence of DT practices and the extent to which they have increased in recent years, as well as the kinds of institutions that rely on DT, we take an important step towards empirically describing how DT practices contribute to larger challenges around transparency in college cost reporting.