Carragee Consulting

The most satisfying and engaging pricing research I ever did was for Capella University regarding the pricing level and structures for their PhD programs.

The group I worked in was called “Knowledge, Insights & Analytics”. Each of the folks I worked with in that group was motivated, intelligent and taught me something useful.

For the PhD tuition we wanted to know how Price/Credit vs Price/Quarter would impact:
1) Learner Outcomes (time to degree completion & retention)
2) Financial Outcomes (lead conversion & revenue pacing, financial aid usage for 90/10 rules).

To answer our questions we brought together multiple inputs spanning both qualitative & quantitative methods

– internal data from different programs we could mine to observe how avg course load was distributed – one program priced by quarter historically and all others by credit

– we did a conjoint survey with prospects to understand to gauge variation in appeal of tuition structure by program type and expected impact of pricing structure & level on time to completion

– Although the conjoint was fielded online, based on some answers we had a research group called iModerate ask real time clarification questions so we could get verbatim quotes and ensure valid understanding of trade offs

This project was an apex moment in my pricing career that I enjoyed from the planning phases, through data acquisition, through compilation of results and especially the executive read out and recommendations.

It was so engaging I thought about switching careers entirely into market research at that time, but I’m glad I stuck with pricing.

I’ve done a poor job keeping in touch with that amazing team from KI&A, but I know they are still doing great things. Thanks y’all
Jeff WeinerTerry GrapentineJoel ReissMaureen McIntireJon Borscheid, MBALauren Hougas