As with all college costs, the tuition you pay is not set in stone. Understanding this, as well as understanding why, can help you to shave thousands off your tuition bills. The reason tuition costs are highly flexible is because classroom instruction is a largely intangible cost. In other words, the cost of adding one more student to a class is very low for a college, especially if the instructors are not compensated based on the number of students they teach. That means that whatever you pay, even if it is a discounted amount, represents positive cash flow to a college or university. And because many institutions are generally strapped for cash, it behooves them to take every student they can fit, even at an often-reduced rate.

How easy is it to get your tuition costs lowered? Let me put it this way: you don’t need to play tennis with the college president or be all chummy with a large donor to get a sweet deal on tuition. You simply need to know how to ask and have a valid reason. If you do, there’s a good chance you’ll get a discount.

Because the techniques listed are not sure things and can result in huge variances in your college costs, we’re not going to include them in your College Cash Strategy Worksheet for now. If you manage to swing a deal on tuition, you can go back and rework your numbers to account for it.

Discounts are one of the great missed financial opportunities of life. Whether it is on your lawn service or the next car you buy, there’s a good chance you can save some of your silver by knowing how to play the game. You see, most businesses are happy to let even their best customers pay full price for their goods or services, as long as their customers don’t seem to mind (as evidenced by them going somewhere else). But, those same businesses need to keep their doors open and would rather give their customers a discount to keep them than to lose them at full price. Typically, if a customer makes it clear that she either needs a discount or is going to go elsewhere, prices start dropping.

Colleges—especially smaller and less competitive colleges—often exhibit these same characteristics. If you’ve been accepted, it means that college wants you as a student. You need to realize that the school is not just doing you a favor, but you’re the kind of student who fits its reputation and business model. The school thought a lot about who it was going to admit and decided that it wants you there. That also means that it will jump through some reasonable hoops to attract and keep you.

With that in mind, it’s important to not be shy about asking a college for a discount if you don’t otherwise qualify for one. The easiest way to do this is to send a letter to your school’s financial aid office, explaining your financial situation, your need for a discount, and the possibility that you might not be able to attend under the current prices.

It should read something like this:

Dear Financial Aid Administrator,

I’m very excited about the prospects of attending ________ College. I have dreamed of attending such a school for a long time.

Unfortunately, due to a number of extenuating circumstances including _ [the economy, job loss, other children in school, a recent divorce, and so on], it is unlikely that I will be able to afford the current tuition rate of $______, even after the existing financial aid packages we’ve been offered.

Please understand that I am not rejecting my current financial package. I do believe, however, that if the cost of tuition was lowered somewhat, attendance would be financially feasible for our family.

Again, I really had my hopes set on attending ______ College and hope that there is something that can be done to further lower the cost. If you have any additional ideas or suggestions, please let me know.

Thank you in advance for your assistance.

This letter should be sent as soon as you receive your financial aid package from the school, unless your aid package covers the majority of the costs of college, in which case you might not want to burn any bridges. Further, it should be re-sent every year after freshman year because your chances of success will greatly increase during the middle years (sophomore and junior years) of college since graduation rates do matter to schools.

One of the best-kept secrets in higher education is the tuition discount that the employees of most universities or colleges receive. Depending on the school, these discounts can range from small (10 to 20 percent) to huge (50 to 100 percent). I can speak from experience, with all the tuition on my second Master’s degree being waived at one of the schools I teach for.

In fact, most schools actually extend tuition discounts or waivers to the spouses and children of employees. That spells opportunity for a parent who isn’t in love with his current job and might be able to get a new job at his child’s college or university. While employee tuition discounts won’t remove all the costs (you still have to pay for room, board, books, and so on), they can represent a huge drop in the bucket.

If college is right around the corner, this option might be out of reach for you. But for those of you who have a year or more to go until college, you should really consider trying to squeeze in some advanced placement (AP) or international baccalaureate (IB) classes into your high school class schedule.

These classes, which are offered as part of the normal course load at many high schools, allow students to take part in college-level work. At the end of the year, the students have the option of taking an exam to demonstrate their mastery over the material. If they score high enough, they might very well be permitted to skip certain classes in college.

I have known students who have skipped an entire year of college by taking these exams, savings tens of thousands of dollars in tuition. But even taking just one AP course and scoring well on the subsequent exam could potentially save a few thousand dollars in tuition.

Unfortunately, not all colleges recognize one or both of these programs, so double-check to ensure that your school of choice accepts these AP or IB exam scores. For more information, visit www.IBO.org and www.CollegeBoard.com.

The College Level Examination Program (CLEP) allows people to “test out” of certain subjects based on their existing knowledge, even if they have not taken classes in a certain area. For example, someone who is bilingual in Spanish can take the CLEP and skip her school’s foreign language requirement.

Currently, 34 CLEP exams are offered through www.CollegeBoard.com, ranging in subject area from business to history to foreign languages. The CLEP exams aren’t free, so you shouldn’t take them if you don’t feel like you have a good handle on the subject. But for those who do, it can save thousands.

Bumping off some of your lower-level, non-major classes on your holidays, mid-semester breaks, and summer vacation can save you some big bucks, especially when the classes are in an alternative format. Sometimes these classes are offered by your primary college; other times they’re offered by other schools or community colleges. Just be sure to check with your school’s registrar to make sure they’ll transfer in and meet your degree requirements before committing to a class.

Some types of alternative classes to consider that can equate to discounted tuition include:

In addition to the tuition trimming tricks mentioned thus far, there are a number of other tricks and discounts that some parents have pulled off from time to time. As the old saying goes, it never hurts to ask, so consider making a call or dropping an e-mail and giving these techniques a try: