BRIDGEWATER — Bridgewater College announced Monday that its tuition price is decreasing from $40,300 to $15,000 — an almost 62% decrease — starting in fall 2024, a move by the college to create a more transparent picture of the price to attend, the private college said.

Bridgewater, like many private schools across the country, lists significantly higher tuition prices compared to many public colleges. Bridgewater, for example, lists its current tuition for residents in the 2023-24 school year at $40,300. James Madison University, on the other hand, lists its annual tuition at $13,850.

Private schools like Bridgewater are unique, however, because they almost always offer students attending the college large discounts and financial aid packages to help manage the cost. Bridgewater President David Bushman said these high “sticker prices” discourage students from applying and make families skeptical of the value of higher education.

According to a 2022 survey by the nonprofit Strada Education Network, less than 1 in 3 adults say a degree is worth the cost. According to a 2023 Sallie Mae and Ipsos study, 78% of families said they did eliminated a school based on the cost.

“I want to make sure the students who really could thrive here — the students for whom Bridgewater is the best place — I want them to look at us to apply,” Bushman said. “I would rather us talk about the value that we have rather than this high sticker price, high discount pricing model that everybody’s been using for over 40 years.”

Bridgewater College isn’t the first institution to implement a “tuition reset.” According to the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, three colleges reset their tuition in the 2020-21 and 2021-22 school years, including Randolph College and University of Lynchburg respectively, reducing its tuition, room and board by 35%. According to the New York Times, there’s no definitive list of colleges that have reduced tuition.

The decision to reduce Bridgewater’s tuition didn’t happen overnight, Bushman said. The university has been discussing and planning the change for over two years. Bushman said the school spent a lot of time looking at the business model and revenue to reduce the tuition, but ultimately, lowering the cost would likely increase enrollment.

“I think this really will help enrollment, and that helps everybody — it creates a stronger, more diverse community,” Bushman said. “Students get a lot from the college, but they also contribute to the college … We’re a stronger community for it. And certainly, if enrollment strengthens, that helps, that helps the college financially as well.”

To implement the change, Bushman explained, the school is doing away with the “coupons” students receive to lower the cost of tuition.

“This is true at almost every private college — most of the scholarships that people get really don’t have actual dollars behind them,” Bushman said. “We still have actual real scholarships with real dollars behind them that help pay for the things that go on at the college. But we’re aligning the financial aid packages. So, if you’re a current student, you’re already paying a very low price, and so your tuition isn’t going to change.”

The model with high tuition and high discounts that private institutions use, Bushman said, started in the ‘80s and is a complicated process. Around 20 years ago, the New York Times reported, some colleges found that high costs increased applications as families began equating price and quality. Then, the schools would use financial or merit aid to lower the price for some students.

Even with financial aid, Bushman said, some students couldn’t afford to attend private schools, so tuition dollars from some students would go toward what some students couldn’t afford.

“Then [colleges] were competing for students, so more and more students got these discounts. Eventually, there weren’t very many students paying the full price anymore,” Bushman said.

According to a study based on 341 private universities from the National Association of College and University Business Officers, almost 91% of first-year students received institutional grants that covered an average of about 62% of published tuition and fees in the 2022-23 academic year.

At Bridgewater, Bushman said the number of students paying the full cost of tuition is probably in the single digits. According to the U.S. Department of Education college scorecard, the average yearly cost for tuition, living costs, books and fees at Bridgewater is $19,119.

For Bridgewater, Bushman said, this change is largely forward-looking

“We’re doing this really for one reason, and that’s to make the great opportunities here available to more people,” Bushman said. “I think by doing that, we help change a conversation about the value of higher education, that it shouldn’t be about the sticker price, it should be about the programs and the people and the places and the connections you make.”