Tuition reset! Free graduate degree! Come and get it while we're still here!

From Inside Higher Ed, 6 November 2023:

Can Free Graduate Tuition Boost Undergrad Enrollment?

Starting next year, Spring Hill College will offer free graduate school tuition to freshmen who complete a bachelor’s degree at the college within four years.

A small private college is turning to an unusual model in an attempt to grow enrollment and improve retention: free tuition for its graduate programs.

Starting in fall 2024, freshmen at Spring Hill College in Mobile, Ala., who complete an undergraduate degree in four years with a 3.0 grade point average won’t have to pay tuition to attend one of the college’s master’s degree programs. (The opportunity will also become partially available to currently enrolled undergraduates, but those details are not solidified yet.)

“This is a multifaceted approach,” said Nathan Copeland, Spring Hill’s vice president of advancement and enrollment. “No doubt, we do believe this will help with our enrollment numbers. But there’s also two other things we really want to increase on our campus, and that’s retention and academic excellence.”

Spring Hill’s free graduate tuition strategy follows a tuition-reset program implemented two years ago, which reduced the annual sticker price by nearly half—from $41,868 to $21,100—and lowered the cost of room and board by $3,200. Officials had hoped those changes would improve the college’s competitiveness in the region and grow enrollment, which dropped from 1,501 students in 2018 to 963 in 2021, according to data from the college. Instead, 2022 marked the lowest head count in years—933 students—though the college has seen a slight bump in the number of freshmen enrolled, from 216 in 2021 to 242 in 2023.

My response, to colleagues:

False claims, misconceptions and mistakes.

Tuition re-set is certainly not a solution when the school is already sliding down (spring) hill. It's probably going to make things worse, and weaken the school's image severely. So even better "marketing," -- ie, promotion and advertising; it's not really marketing -- is not going to help.

One of the worst canards further from the truth than most claims in higher ed is that (now fully woke) liberal arts faculty and curriculum teach "critical thinking." Last thing on a progressive liberal arts faculty member's mind. Per one pundit: "Progressives don't want to win the debate; they want to shut down the debate." So much for diversity of viewpoints and ideas, and for free speech on a woke campus.

An MBA on top of an unbranded BA in business -- from the same school -- is a serious waste of time, even if it is free. It won't improve one's value in the market; they just added the letter M to a weak business education.

This "92 percent employed" claim is patently false if it is based on respondents to the survey, rather than from an unbiased sample of the graduating population. Pure smokescreen.

The idea that this extra year of free tuition costs the university nothing is another delusion, oft-practiced by Loyola in creating useless grad degrees. Making something you don't want, don't need (a masters in theology?), and doesn't sell well "free" is not doing anyone any favors, including the party giving it away. Plus anything called a "master's" is inherently and unforgivably racist anyway, right?