When I worked in retail, we often talked about our Good-Better-Best marketing strategy, which included product mix and pricing components. My morning musings had me thinking about parallels with this structure and higher education, particularly as it relates to price discounting.

Let’s use bedding as our retail example. Where I worked, we had the “Good” brand that utilized basic fabrics, solid colors, and was the main brand marketed during the Back to School/Back to College season. The “Better” brand utilized nicer fabrics and a more modern aesthetic. Finally, the “Best” brand had the best fabrics (think thread count), and had a more classic/traditional styling.

From a product quality standpoint, you’d expect the “Good” to last you through a year of dorm living where your bed also served as couch and group working space - but not much longer. The “Best” could live on in someone’s home for years as their go-to product. As you might guess, the price points followed this strategy as well, with “Good” as the least expensive and “Best” the most.

What does this all have to do with college, you ask?

First, a quick consumer/self-awareness quiz:

When you see a product — let’s say a bottle of wine — that is the cheapest one on the shelf, how do you feel? What are you thinking?
Let’s say that bottle of wine is $5. Down the aisle, you see a $50 bottle of wine that is discounted to $7 due to excess inventory or some other reason that means the product is still viable. Now, how do you feel? What are you thinking?
And, when you see a $500 bottle of wine, where does your mind go?

If you’re like me, you assume that the cheapest bottle of wine likely isn’t great. Unless I’ve been told otherwise by someone I know, which would elevate the reputation of the brand/product in my mind, or if I’m looking for a different use case, like cooking wine, I’m not likely to purchase that bottle.

For the second question, I’d be ECSTATIC if I found a higher price point bottle discounted so heavily for seemingly good reason - what a deal!

Lastly, a $500 bottle is just out of the question. It might be right for some but would be out of my consideration set. But, what if that $500 bottle could be discounted, too?

Here’s where the higher education parallel comes in.

For some of us, we see relatively inexpensive options for earning a degree or credential and think: no way, not the quality I’m looking for. Others may feel that this product meets their needs perfectly. Great.

From a discounting standpoint, in higher education, it’s difficult to tell whether the higher price point degree is “on sale” or not. Given the complexity of scholarships, waivers, and financial aid, what IS the true price that a student is going to pay?

The fact that this is not always clear — at least not until after one fills out the FAFSA (assuming they can) or even a school’s scholarship application — is a major downside. There are some schools out there that have estimators on their websites for what a student will actually pay, which is a great start. However, these calculations are complex, with Federal, Institutional, and College-level aid being awarded at different times. And, there are different levels of cultural comfort with taking out loans.

Working at a college in a large institution, I know firsthand that it can be difficult to understand all of the scholarships, waivers, and other aid allocated to our own students.

So, what am I trying to say here? Bottom line, don’t be fooled by the sticker price of an institution. They are not all created equal when it comes to the “sale” price, so if you are interested in the product, find out more. You just might be in a position to get that $50 bottle or even $500 bottle of wine at a price that is right for you.