Mark Salisbury, founder of TuitionFit
Quad-Cities Times recently printed an excellent article detailing new startup TutionFit, an online platform where students can anonymously share tuition costs and scholarship valuation. Visit the TutionFit website we built at tuitionfit.org
Below are some of the keynotes, but check out the full article here.
The Problem
Mark Salisbury has 25 years of experience working in higher education admissions at both University of Iowa and Augustana College. Over and over he’s seen the frustration of students and families that just want a straight answer when it comes to the actual price after factoring in scholarships and grants. “The sticker price is one thing, but then there’s scholarships and grants, so you just have to apply and find out. And that drove people nuts.”
The Solution
TutionFit’s goal is to make the cost of college more transparent for students so they can be better prepared to make one of the biggest financial decisions of their lives, choosing which college to attend. With national tuition rates and loan debt consistently on the rise, this becomes all the more necessary.
Colleges Can Benefit As Well
Besides helping students, this shared information can help colleges as well. “As I’ve paid attention to this, I’ve been amazed by how this pricing dilemma was actually hurting colleges. We’ve all heard about someone looking at colleges and they see the sticker price of school, and its $60k, and they’re like, ‘forget it.’ And then, they charge $50 to send in an application just to find out if you can get the price cut in half. It’s not worth the risk.”
How to Join
Students can sign up anonymously for free to share award letter values, so other students, which could receive a similar grants, can determine how much discount they can expect from the same college. Colleges can pay for a subscription to access this database to view the offerings made by competing schools.
“The goal really is that we as a public can solve this problem ourselves. We don’t need colleges to do it for us,” he said. “We still want college. We need higher education. It’s an expensive thing to deliver, and we’re willing to pay money for it and borrow money for it. But you just have to let the people be informed.”
Tags: College, education, Tuition, TuitionFit, University