Northland College in Ashland is reducing its tuition for certain students to attract more talent. Joe Cadotte reports.

Starting this fall students with families who make less than $150,000 per year will qualify for a program to attend Northland College for around $16,500 less per year. Northland College Vice President for Enrollment Management Rick Smith says the new program is a part of a three year effort to attract more talent to its campus.

“So that this is accessible to the broadest range of families regardless of income and financial circumstances while still giving us the information we need to make a good judgment about their readiness and ability to succeed in college.”

In this tough economy, Rick says money is often times parent’s number one concern when selecting a college. Rick hopes to end that trend.

“The key thing is to make sure that students and family’s can really look at the differences between campuses like that. For those of us who work in the business, the differences are obvious but sometimes as families are consumed by costs and advertised costs they loose sights of those differences and loose sights of focusing on features and characteristics that fit.”

The new program to lower tuition for low to moderate income families is one of several ways Northland College is increasing their applicant pool. They’ve also waived application fees and the requirement of applicants to provide letters of recommendation.

• WPR Briefs: Obama leads Romney, Bong doc to air Mon., jobless figures improve - 5/26/2012
• Ashland strike could be microcosm of public union fight with Walker - 5/25/2012
• Duffy calls for House investigation into JPMorgan, opponent says it's about time - 5/24/2012
• New WPR poll: Governor's race tight - 5/24/2012
• Blowdown restrictions worked, ending at midnight - 5/23/2012