Association for Institutional Research Supporting quality data and decisions for higher education. Professional Development, Informational Resources & Networking Tuition Revenues and Enrollment Demand: The Case of (original) (raw)

This paper details our experience with successfully increasing tuition revenues at Southern Utah University and provides a case study in how economic research and the politics of tuition policy combined to increase university revenue with stakeholder buy-in. Our success was based on three key factors: (a) we had a key administrator who advocated economic modeling and a positive basis for tuition policy; (b) we obtained empirical evidence of the effects of the proposed tuition increase by estimating an enrollment demand model; and (c) we were able to obtain stakeholder buy-in. Following the largest tuition increase in over 30 years, enrollment growth has remained strong and revenues have increased.