Annouced on September 12, “The Wartburg Commitment” is Wartburg College’s new plan to create more financial access for undergraduate students. Photo courtesy of Wartburg College via wartburg.edu.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my four years at Luther, it’s that we really like to compete with Wartburg College. We compete with Wartburg in everything: primarily in athletics, but I would argue we also compete in other areas like student enrollment, extracurricular success and overall campus life. Remember last semester, when we competed in a food drive against Wartburg? Or when the Luther Book Shop put Wartburg clothing on the mannequins on April Fool’s Day? Wartburg’s Student Alumni Council literally created a publication dedicated to our rivalry in 2001.

This historical rivalry sets a strong precedent for “anything Wartburg does, Luther does better,” which is why I am very interested to see how Luther responds to “The Wartburg Commitment.” As reported in the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier, “The Wartburg Commitment” is Wartburg’s new financial program that will lower the college’s published tuition price by nearly 45%, from $62,102 in 2023-24 to around $25,000 in 2024-25. Notice that I used the word “around”, as that number is just a sticker price; Wartburg’s official website for the “Commitment” actually estimates that students will pay $38,000 after adding housing, food and other fees to the tuition total. But whether the price to attend Wartburg drops to $25,000, $38,000 or somewhere in between, it is a significantly lower number than the $61,500 fee that Luther students currently pay.

The “Commitment” also includes provisions for students eligible for the Iowa Tuition Grant, covering the entire cost of their tuition through the “Access to Excellence” award, which allows more students from lower-income families to attend Wartburg. Out-of-state students from similar backgrounds won’t have their full tuition covered by the award, but can still receive $9,500 in aid through a combination of the award, out-of-state grants, and merit-based scholarships. As an added bonus, Wartburg is giving every undergraduate student, regardless of financial background, a one-time payment of $1500 that they can use for an experiential learning experience.

Let’s be real here. This is fishy — how is Wartburg able to afford this? Did they cut a ton of departments? Do they just have very rich and powerful donors? This is a discussion for another time. However, thinking about the constant power struggle that is Luther v. Wartburg, think of the impact this could have on prospective students. The cost of higher education is a huge driving factor behind college decisions and Wartburg just took advantage of it.  It’s no secret that Wartburg and Luther are direct institutional competitors. “The Wartburg Commitment” is a smart marketing play that positions a private, ELCA-associated, liberal arts institution as more financially accessible than its alternatives — which, in this case, is Luther. I think Luther’s recent announcement on September 25 about price increases for academic merit-based scholarships and the new scholarship for first-generation students is a good start to respond to Wartburg, but I also don’t think it’s enough.

Anyone around campus could tell you that Luther is in an enrollment decline. If Luther was really committed to competing with any other institution, a massive tuition drop like the one Wartburg just committed to would be just what Luther needs to get their enrollment numbers back to what they once were. It would definitely give Luther the competitive advantage it seeks to steal a few students who were on the fence about coming to Decorah. At the very least, Luther students deserve public answers. If Wartburg can lower their tuition, why can’t we? I’m sure that gets into some messy and tricky talk about Luther’s finances, but I think students would appreciate the transparency. 

Now, I’m not writing this article because I believe Luther wants to extort students for as much money as possible. Luther prides itself on its affordability; the September 25 press release directly says so. The catch is that affordability means different things to different people. I was privileged enough to afford Luther, but I also know that not everyone can say the same. Perhaps the leadership at Luther think that the experience students receive is worth the $61,500. Maybe they think that Luther gives out enough financial aid and scholarship opportunities to cover the cost. Who knows? The bottom line is this: there is nothing stopping someone who isn’t financially privileged and has no knowledge of Luther from taking one look at our tuition and setting our institution aside. We can compete with Wartburg all we want, but until Luther’s tuition is lowered, it will be “advantage, Wartburg” for the near future.