Recreation Center, TCU – Fort Worth, Texas

Sand Volleyball courts, rock climbing walls, acres of fitness machines, and a giant pool. Sounds more like a country club. Certainly, a rich school like TCU is well equipped to play the facilities arms race. Add to that, multiple business school buildings, lab spaces, and classic architecture and you make a campus that impresses, hoping to entice more students. Of course, tuition and expenses do cost upwards of $65,000.

Higher education is a business like any other. And, like many other industries, the larger and better capitalized, the more they thrive. On the other hand, smaller, less known, or niche colleges suffer. There is a declining student population even before the COVID crisis. Already, many smaller schools are under financial strain.

As a consumer of educational services, the trick is to get scholarships. If done right, many people pay significantly less than the official sticker price. Depending on the situation, the cost of a private school is not very different from a state school. And, if you pick the right place, you get better facilities than cash-strapped government-funded institutions.

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