Pricing Pressures Likely to Hurt Private Colleges, S&P Says

Growing consumer reluctance to pay rising tuition rates are threatening to drive up private colleges' tuition discount rates, limit net tuition revenue, and lower matriculation rates and enrollments in ways that could hurt their financial ratings, Standard & Poor's said in a report issued Tuesday. The report, which like most of S&P's reports is available only to subscribers, says that the pressure on institutions will come particularly in the most competitive markets; data in the report find tuition discount rates rising fastest in the Northeast (from 31 to 34 percent since 2008), but net tuition levels and matriculation rates fell most sharply in the West.