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Families, Colleges Negotiating Tuitions With Help of Algorithms
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Welcome back. Today, we look at a report on how families and colleges are relying on technology to negotiate tuition. Both sides are enlisting consultants who use algorithms to determine price points. Families want to get the biggest breaks possible. Schools are trying to extract the highest tuition without driving applicants away.
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Todd Fothergill, a consultant to families, demonstrates an algorithm to appraise clients’ financial scores. PHOTO: CHRISTOPHER LEE FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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Tech helping families, schools negotiate tuition. Families and colleges are turning to technology to help figure out tuition, The Wall Street Journal’s Josh Mitchell reports.
Many colleges customize tuition-and-aid offers to extract the maximum from each prospect without driving the student to a rival campus. Enrollment-management consultants use computer algorithms to advise administrators on each prospect’s “price sensitivity.” One consultant has used an algorithm weighing 253 characteristics—such as gender, race, parental income, addresses, and the frequency of contact with recruiters—to help a school determine what it should charge.
Families, in turn, are turning to consultants who, using their own algorithms, specialize in coaching them on strategies to squeeze more money out of colleges. One consultant gathers data on schools, mainly the net tuition the colleges charge families in different income groups. He plugs that data into software that helps determine which schools a student will have the most leverage over.
The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated a yearslong shift in bargaining power away from colleges and toward families. The American Council on Education, a university trade group, in April said it expected college enrollment to drop by up to 15% nationwide this fall. And some families have pushed for deeper discounts, particularly those who have lost jobs or have small businesses hurting because of the pandemic.
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The Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus in Cambridge, Mass. PHOTO: CHARLES KRUPA/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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MIT robot sanitizes food bank. Researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, working with Ava Robotics, recently deployed a robotic system to disinfect the warehouse of the Greater Boston Food Bank to slow the spread of Covid-19, TechCrunch reports.
The robot, equipped with cameras and sensors, has the ability to map out a space and then make its way around the area. It uses UV light to disinfect surfaces that might be contaminated and kill aerosolized forms of the virus, according to the report.
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Facilities deploy thermal image scanners with facial recognition. Offices, shopping centers and other buildings are deploying thermal imaging cameras, many with facial recognition technology, to spot if people entering a facility have a fever, IEEE Spectrum reports. But by combining temperature checks with facial recognition, facilities owners are, in a way, collecting and controlling people’s health data, according to the report. And that, IEEE Spectrum says, is raising concerns among civil liberty advocates and others.
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OJO Labs raises more than $60 million. OJO Labs Inc., which offers home buyers an artificial intelligence virtual assistant and connects them with affiliated agents, raised roughly $63 million in a funding round led by investment firm Wafra Inc., WSJ Pro reports.
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The Supreme Court ordered changes to a government consumer-finance watchdog created in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, capping a 10-year battle over the agency by ruling its structure was unconstitutional because the director held too much unchecked power. (WSJ)
India banned dozens of Chinese mobile apps, including widely used TikTok and WeChat, after a border clash between troops from the two countries left 20 Indian soldiers dead this month. (WSJ)
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