Posted on 12/17/2020 9:15:19 AM PST by billorites
Southern New Hampshire University will offer different tuition levels for its on-campus undergraduate programs next year that will be at least 50% less than its current rate.
The offerings include $10,000- and $15,000-a-year options, compared to its current $31,000 cost, the college announced Wednesday.
The college first announced its goal to offer $10,000 tuition options in April but hadn’t determined how campus academic programs would look starting in the fall of 2021.
“We increasingly recognized that too many people were struggling with the cost of traditional residential higher Ed, and we feared students would be increasingly unable to attend or that they were just taking on too much debt,” said President and CEO Paul LeBlanc on Wednesday afternoon.
The pandemic accelerated the push for the new program design. The college originally planned to offer the more affordable options by 2023.
“We realized that we really couldn’t wait. This year’s high school seniors really would be struggling,” LeBlanc said.
“We think the struggles of the last recession will pale in comparison to what we are going to see in this current economy,” he said. “For us, we’ve always been about: ‘How can we remain accessible and affordable?’”
Starting in the fall of 2021, SNHU will launch six programs for $10,000 — or $320 per credit hour. The programs include entrepreneurship, game art and interactive design, game and simulation programming, construction management, communication and graphic design and media arts.
In those programs, at least 36 credits will be earned through studio work, lab work, project-based courses, internships or industry certifications. Classes will take place in-person and online.
The “Experience More” programs are career-focused and designed to prepare students for the workplace more rapidly, according to an announcement by the university.
The programs are available for freshman and rising sophomores enrolled at the college. Up to 1,050 current freshman were offered free tuition as the new programs were rolled out.
“We’ve run a whole bunch of experiments and new kinds of programs at $10K to realize how we would get there,” LeBlanc said. “We didn’t start this from ground zero. We are distilling a lot of learning we’ve done over the last few years.”
Tuition will not top $15,000 for about 70 career-focused majors.
“We think for some students the $10K programs will be better suited, and then for other students the $15K program will be better suited,” LeBlanc said. “If you are in a $15K program it is going to look familiar. It is going to be regular classes with your regular faculty and you’ll have electives you can choose from.”
The college is able to reduce costs through restructuring financial aid and other efficiencies. It will change merit-based to need-based financial aid to “level the playing field” for all students, according to the announcement.
LeBlanc called the cost of tuition across higher education “a broken model that too often leaves students behind.”
Financial aid will be simplified, LeBlanc said.
“We’re not going to have these confusing financial aid sheets,” he said. “It is going to be very clear, and it’s going to make what I think has been fairly opaque for many families very simple. ‘This is your out-of-pocket costs. This is what it will cost to come here.’”
LeBlanc said the change in tuition will make a college education affordable for more students.
“By reducing the cost of tuition and moving from a merit-based financial aid model to a need-based model, we are adding clarity to what is currently an overwhelming process, providing transparency into the ‘real costs’ of a degree, reducing the average debt load a student is saddled with post-graduation, and increasing access for the students who need aid the most,” said Jodi Abad, associate vice president of student financial services, in a statement.
About 800 SNHU staff members worked for eight months to rethink the cost and delivery of campus-based education.
LeBlanc expects a lot of interest in the programs.
SNHU also wants to expand its campus enrollment from 3,000 students to 4,500 students by 2025.
Online programs already costs $10,000 for full-time undergraduate programs.
“We always think of online as being the working adult with kids,” LeBlanc said. “We got something like 30,000 traditional college-aged students in our online program. Students are voting for that $10K tuition in huge numbers.”
The college also plans modest reductions to room and board, which was most recently listed as between $9,000 and $11,000 on its website.
“There is less space to innovate with room and board,” LeBlanc said. “Meals are meals. Beds are beds. There is not a whole lot we can do about that.”
LeBlanc said the reduced tuition will not mean a “less quality or diminished” experience.
“We have a pretty good track record,” LeBlanc said. “We haven’t raised tuition in years.”
What this really means is that enrollments have dropped so far that SNHU can’t sustain itself. They are hoping to lure the state college students with a cheap price.
“There’s a good reason LeBlanc is paid more than a million a year. “
What reason is that?
I expect most of the students are first generation college students and most hold jobs.
Uh, isn’t that about $10K, $15K more than china joe wants/demands?
Colleges all across the country are going to have to lower their rates if this Covid nonsense keeps up. Kids just are not going to pay $30,000 a year to watch some lame professor lecture them on their laptop screens. It is ridiculous... half of them are at school to get loans and grants to spend four years partying and fooling around with the opposite sex. We are eventually going to have a bunch of unemployed leftist professors. Also brainwashing is not as easy to acheive without personal contact and peer pressure. Who says idiotic Covid lockdowns have no benefit?
I believe that is part of it. These colleges and universities have been riding the gravy trade of keeping tuition high and increasing it year after year because they kept getting suckers, I mean students, to pay ridiculously high tuition and take out mountains of debt for useless degrees. I suspect people have started to smarten up and not attend and instead use alternate less expensive routes to get a good paying job, and they have finally realized it.
Why would anyone want to pay even half-tuition when COVID has demonstrated they can just stay home and take all their classes online, obviating the need for a school to fund the overhead of having a huge campus, housing, etc?
He was transformed a small, local business college into the second largest private online university in the country. They offer a very good product for career minded students. This is not a school where you major in fill-in-the-blank studies.
Plus, he has kept the school out of debt. Not many competitors can claim the same.
It doesn't hurt that he's media savvy and doesn't utter the sort of stupid statements that his comrades at "better" schools can't avoid.
Dropping the price 31,000 to 10,000.
Colleges have similar markups to jewelry stores.
of course not!...the same overpaid faculty will remain the same with an even better indoctrination expedience.....ever notice how Professors are know as fa"cult"y??
“SNHU has had a phenomenal rate of growth under LeBlanc.
He was transformed a small, local business college into the second largest private online university in the country. They offer a very good product for career minded students. This is not a school where you major in fill-in-the-blank studies.
Plus, he has kept the school out of debt. Not many competitors can claim the same.
It doesn’t hurt that he’s media savvy and doesn’t utter the sort of stupid statements that his comrades at “better” schools can’t avoid.”
Thanks for explaining
15,000 year is a price break?
When I went to university (which wasn’t yesterday but not THAT long ago) it cost me $1,500 per semester which included on-campus residence for a full-time undergraduate schedule of classes.
The current model for post secondary education being the primary gateway to higher paying careers needs to change.
“LeBlanc said the reduced tuition will not mean a “less quality or diminished” experience. <<
of course not!...the same overpaid faculty will remain the same with an even better indoctrination expedience.....ever notice how Professors are know as fa”cult”y??”
I received my Bachelors at SNHU online and am completing my MBA there. I never witnessed any indoctrination from the faculty. My son went to SNHU on-campus where he also received his Bachelors and MBA. Again, no indoctrination, although some of the clubs on campus are questionable.
Dr. LeBlanc is a class act. When my son was considering attending SNHU, LeBlanc said that if my son attended SNHU, the first plane ticket home was on him. We live in Texas. My son worked on several veterans projects and worked at the school.
It’s not a tier one school by ay stretch of the imagination, but it does provide a good education, especially for veterans.
I went to college for 1000.00 a semester in the 70’s included all books and housing!! HOWEVER my parents bought a 3,000 square foot home in CA. for 26,000 with a HUGE yard both front and back!! That home today is 1.3 million so I guess when you look at everything considered!! Education SKYROCKETED when Obama put the government in charge of loans AND guarantees of those loans!! The loans should have been left to the private sector!!
No elite, ever, has gone to SNHU.
It’s similar to University of Phoenix.
Agree about college being the “only” gateway to a good job.
In 1988, I took a few community college computer classes. Nothing major, just introductory stuff. I took a job as a night time computer operator, printing checks, running reports, keeping an eye on processes, etc.
I eventually, with very little additional schooling, and through showing initiative, carved out a great career moving to two other companies, eventually becoming a project manager.
A lot of where you go depends on your work ethic and your demeanor. Today’s kids (not all of them) complain about not wanting to work full time, or won’t put in the extra hours if they aren’t getting paid for it. I’ve told my kids that attitude outweighs aptitude many times. Obviously, you need the aptitude in some fields. But, if you get into a place and show that you want to learn and aren’t afraid to put in the time, you can make a good living.
Thanks for the info.
Sounds like what I envision as a possible future for higher edumacation.
I’m not putting any money into funds for my Grandkids’ higher educations. I expect most of the Brick and Mortar Schools to be defunct by the time the kids continue to get educated.
I was working for a competitor that was taken over by SNHU when we went out of business.
I was very impressed with the professionalism of everyone I had contact with. SNHU went out of their way to make sure that our students stayed on track to graduate on time and they also preserved a lot of jobs. Class act is correct.
Anyone graduating from SNHU with an MBA has solid credentials.
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