This presentation is part of: J00-1 Topics in Labor Economics and Education

Does Quality Matter? An Hedonic Analysis of Liberal Arts Colleges' Tuition Prices

Heather O'Neill, Ph.D., Business and Economics, Ursinus College, 616 Penllyn Pike, Lower Gwynedd, PA 19002

(This paper was co-authored by Joshua Delano also of Ursinus College)

Rising tuitions at public and private colleges and universities draw the ire of many Americans.  Rising by more than general price inflation and the growth in family income, onerous tuitions create anxiety among college students and their families as they pay these bills.  Private liberal arts colleges offer a different model of education than public institutions, but it generally comes at a demonstrably higher price than tuition at public institutions.  The smaller class sizes, higher graduation rates, large financial aid packages, and other differential quality measures generally associated with liberal arts colleges contribute to the higher tuition price.  This paper uses an hedonic price model of liberal arts colleges’ tuitions to measure the value attributed to a variety of educational quality measures.  Panel data from 180 private liberal arts colleges for the academic years 2001-02 through 2006-07 are collected from the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges (AGB) and used to estimate fixed effects and random effects regression models.