Concord Reduces Summer Tuition For out-of-State Students

Out-of-state students will save $354 per credit hour for summer courses. 
Photo Courtesy of  www.concord.edu

During the last week of March, Concord University students received an email with news that the school is reducing undergraduate summer school tuition for out-of-state students, dropping the regular price of $649 per credit hour to $295. “That is a savings of $354 per credit hour,” highlights the email. 

    “A lot of our students need to go home because they need to work. And yet they still need additional classes,” says President Kendra Boggess. She believes that high costs per credit hour may be one of the reasons why out-of-state students prefer to take their summer classes elsewhere, and so Concord decided to do something about it. “What we learned in the past two years is that when we offer courses online in the summer, they fill up. So there is a demand that we have not met. And so we thought that this would be a way to make sure that we did have classes that are full, because no matter what class you have, when you are paying an instructor there is a cost and you want to at least meet the cost,” says President Boggess. “We are not a for-profit organization but we need to meet our costs so we are not losing money. We think this would increase number of students who want to take classes.” 

    Charles Becker, Vice President for Business & Finance at Concord University, says that reducing summer rates for out-of-state students was “really a marketing decision. We have number of students that go away every summer and they go to their home states and home countries, and if they really want classes they have to pay a very high price for it with out-of-state rates. And typically they may not take the class at all or take it at their local community college. And then they have to be concerned how their classes would transfer back to Concord.” Mr. Becker says he heard from one of the professors that some students were interested in taking the course offered by that same professor, but found the summer rates too high. “We thought we are excluding a bunch of people during the summer who could take classes which could help them toward graduation,” explains Mr. Becker. 

    Dr. Peter L. Viscusi, Vice President and Academic Dean, thinks that “we were missing opportunities. In any area, you have people who are coming home from another school, from another place. And many times, students want to take a course to get ahead, whatever it happens to be. We live close enough to the Virginia and North Carolina border, so it is possible that somebody might want to take a course when they come home. It is possible that some of our own students who are out-of-state and who are paying out-of-state tuition during the regular part of the year, well, if they decided they wanted to go home and they wanted to take courses—they would be able to, at the discount. And if you looked at the discount, you are saving a thousand dollars a course.” Dr. Viscusi believes that it is important to help students to graduate on time and believes that the new summer rates might stay for future summers. “I can’t guarantee it, but we will see. I think it is a worthwhile experiment and if it works… why not?”