Northcentral University, for the second time this year, will increase tuition!

Beginning October 1, undergrad programs will increase from $165 to $200 per unit, while the graduate programs will increase from $165 to $250 per unit.

 

Hi,

What were they about a year ago ? Around the $100 a credit I think and $10 more for graduate level.

 

Ya know, it would be really nice if this doubling of tuition in less than a year could be tied to significantly enhanced services, dramatic improvements in quality of instruction, etc., but my guess is that it's simply greed on the part of the school's operators.

Since one of the criteria for advancing to candidacy is financial stability, I would be surprised if they were not profitable before they applied for regional accreditation.
Therefore, one can only assume that it is the desire to cash in on their not-yet-even-assured accreditation that has motivated the doubling of tuition rates.

Oh well. Capitalism at it's best, I guess.

(Since they used to shill here quite a bit until gently encouraged not to do so, I'm sure they still read the board. It will be interesting to see if they respond.)

 

I don't know if they will, but I will. I wouldn't categorize their tuition increases as greed. First, we all knew they would do it, just as other schools have done it after receiving accreditation. Second, it is capitalism at work. Their product is more attractive now, so it likely is experiencing greater demand. That should naturally drive up cost. Third, they may very well have been operating at a deficit in their pre-candidacy days; it might be time to make up for that. Finally, they're still way under the market price for accredited DL graduate study, and not much over the pricing levels of unaccredited schools.

NCU represents either a bargain or a risk, depending on one's assessment of their chances for accreditation. Personally, I think they're a good bet, and considerably less expensive than other, accredited, DL graduate schools in the U.S.

Rich Douglas

 

"Way under" at $250 per unit? With all the popular state colleges and universities and Hawaiian UDGIs? What statistical references are you using, Rich? Probably "informed opinion." Where does capitalism as usual end and unmitigated greed begin? The customer will be the judge. Can anyone ever be greedy, or is greed good? Avarice is commonplace and greed is a vice. Some gas stations in the immediate aftermath of our recent national terrorist attack more than doubled prices (a la NCU) and our Michigan attorney general threatened to prosecute (under some war profiteering statute I believe). They quickly relented. Police checked on their patrols that prices were not posted over the limit of $2.25 per gallon that our attorney general set for now (the average is about $1.70). I will admit that the free market will usually balance this out. Luckily not many stations raised their prices to the $5.00 a gallon price that some stations tried, so I don't think those profiteers sold much gas. If NCU raises prices too high, demand will lessen, etc. So, the greed is mitigated by the consumer's choices. As long as there are enough real choices (Microshaft, RA, and other monopolistic entities lessen this necessary factor). But enough economics, my main point is that $200 per undergrad and $250 per unit is not "way under" all that many schools, in my informed opinion (no particular statistical survey to back mine up either!) Let's not encourage NCU's apparent avarice upon their RA candidacy.

Gary

 

Touro International University is double the cost at $500 per credit. Walden charges almost $14,000, plus residency and other fees, which would equate to the cost of about 48 NCU s.h. per year. Union is almost $16,000 per year in tuition. Fielding: more than $14,000. At $250 per credit, taking 30 credits a year would add up to....$7,500 per year.

This isn't "informed opinion." Name a less expensive, accredited (or candidate--but there aren't any right now)--free-standing school offering doctoral programs via DL.

For a free-standing DL school, NCU represents quite a bargain. The trade-off is the risk that they're candidacy will not become full accreditation.

Comparing them to government-subsidized state colleges or unaccredited private schools is unfair. In the first case, the costs are being footed mostly by taxpayers. (Also, there aren't too many low-cost doctoral programs available from state schools by DL, are there?) In the second, unaccredited schools operate under much less stringent and costly conditions. Plus, their product (the degree) is inferior.

As for comparing this situation to the price-gouging on gas in the Midwest, well...quite an emotional argument, but hardly an apt analogy. Consumers can be trapped into higher gas costs by colluding fuel providers, to the extent those consumers need/want gas. But NCU isn't colluding with any other schools to drive up tuition prices, and doctoral programs can hardly be termed necessities like gas.

Your "admission" that the free market will balance this out is an "admission" that it is the marketplace, not some powerful school's greed, that will set the price. Gee, I thought I'd said that.

Rich Douglas