...or is this like many other things negotiable? Anybody have any success in dickering down their tuition costs? Any tips, tricks or strategies?
Yes - I think they are written in stone (except when they go to raise tuition rates). Which school are you referring to?
I have heard of unadvertised discounts for military, veterans, law enforcement, etc., and Florida State University offers the resident tuition rate under a little-advertised waiver program, but it can't hurt to ask any school.
The only kind of wiggling room is what has already been mentioned... finding out if you're a member of any group eligible for a tuition discount. If you live in a Southern state the Academic Common Market can sometimes get you a cheaper out-of-state tuition rate. Otherwise, negotiating tuition with a university would be kind of like negotiating with your health insurance for your monthly premium. You can always try, but there's really not much point to it.
Disagree. Mariah and I pointed out, in Finding Money for College in 1998 what we had long heard from readers: tuition is negotiable. This was sort of like pointing out that the emperor had no clothes. Some admissions offers privately admitted it and said they were glad to see it written about. Others were indignant: "We don't do that sort of thing." What about "in house" scholarships, we asked. "Yes, we do that." In other words, if someone balks at the fees, the tuition can be reduced through granting an unnamed, no-money-changes-hands "scholarship" which is indistinguishable from a tuition reduction. Other said "we work with our applicants." One of the charming examples, we reported in the book, was a 42-year-old man who was going back to school. He was given a softball scholarship. As we pointed out, there are something like 5,000 full tennis scholarships. Thus one doesn't have to be even one of the 5,000 best players, but only one of the 5,000 best who happen to want to go to a given school at a given time. There's a 'bending the rules' section in Bears' Guide because of all the times this is done, nonpublicly, and often denied. If I were still doing the book, I'd definitely put this matter in that section. --John Bear, who was actually offered, unsolicitedly, a full tennis scholarship on graduating from high school, but I had no wish to go to Florida at that time.