How to Know if a College is Giving Their Best Price with Mark Salisbury

College and Career Clarity

With the high cost of college, don’t you wish you could pull back the curtain on college pricing to be sure you are getting their best offer for your teen? My guest, Mark Salisbury, created TuitionFit to gather information and put it into a “Kelly Bluebook” of college pricing. Whether your student is just starting to consider and visit colleges or they’ve already applied or even been excepted, the data Mark will provide you for free will help you know if you are getting a good deal or perhaps it’s worth asking for a bigger discount. Mark gathers student profiles and financial award letters to create a data set with amazing benefits for your student and their family. Price transparency means you can get the best price for higher education, so I hope you listen to the episode!

EPISODE NOTES

Did you know that only 1 in 10 freshmen pays the advertised sticker price at their university? That is just one reason why my guest Mark Salisbury created TuitionFit, a crowdfunded data set built from about 20 thousand college award letters to date. He's seen too many small colleges with high sticker prices fail to get enough students despite giving discounts to everyone who applied. By letting families like yours know what you’ll pay if your student gets into the schools they applied to, he hopes applying for college will become more like buying a house or car. After all, step number one in building a healthy college list should be figuring out your budget!

TuitionFit receives actual student offer letters, hides the personal details, and then sorts the data based on the student's academic profile, award letter, and the name of the college. That data set allows your family to compare prices, and Mark revealed to me how most families who appealed for more financial aid received a more competitive offer, all because they now had power and agency as a consumer. Mark is joined by various independent college counselors, college search professionals, and access organizations, forming the TuitionFit Collaborative to help more students.

Remember, you're the consumer when it comes to paying for college. You need information and price transparency to make wise and informed choices. Mark knows colleges build wiggle room into their pricing, and your family shouldn't have to pay more than you can afford or the college can afford to give you. Even if you're just thinking about colleges right now, TuitionFit can help you shop by price and build your preferred college list to get the best value for your money!

Highlights

• Using college price transparency to build a college list with financial fit for your family
• How you can know what other students with a similar academic profile are paying for the same college
• Tips for negotiating a better offer than a college offered you at admission
• Learn how the free Tuition Fit tool works & how your family can benefit

Meet Our Guest

Mark Salisbury is a nationally-renowned author, speaker, educator, and champion of college price transparency as a primary way to simplify and improve the college admissions process. His work has been highlighted by the New York Times, Forbes, NBC, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and NPR. In addition, he is a regular guest on a myriad of podcasts addressing college admissions and the higher education industry. Mark earned his Ph.D. from the University of Iowa and holds additional degrees from the

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