Bethel University officials announced this week that the school will cut tuition for all undergraduate students to about $26,000 — about $18,000 less than this year — starting in the fall of 2025.

The reduction won’t cost the university much to implement. Because of scholarships and aid, the new discount reflects what most students would already have paid.

“This really is driven around transparency and being clear with our students and families,” Ross Allen, president of Bethel University, said in an interview.

Private colleges have gotten into a “pricing game” where there’s a high sticker price, but many discounts or scholarships are available to students who qualify. But that can be frustrating and confusing to navigate for families, Allen said.

Some people rule out private colleges altogether because of their perceived cost, said Paul McGinnis, Bethel University’s vice president of marketing and enrollment.

“Very few people pay the full sticker price and we want to just be clear and simple,” he said, adding that much of the national conversation around whether college is worth it uses colleges’ sticker prices, which can be deceiving.

Students will also still be eligible for federal financial aid and scholarships from the Arden Hills school, which enrolls roughly 2,000 undergraduates and 2,000 students in its graduate, online and seminary programs combined.

This year, the cost for tuition, room and board and fees is about $57,000, McGinnis said, but that will drop to about $39,000 for everything next year. Room and board costs roughly $12,600, he said.

Investigators in St. Paul are working to learn what led to an early Tuesday shooting that left a man dead, and trying to find those responsible.

Police went to the 1200 block of W. University Avenue after a 911 caller reported hearing gunshots about 12:30 a.m. and saw a body on the ground, said Sgt. Mike Ernster with the St. Paul Police Department.

Officers arrived and found a man with gunshot wounds lying behind an apartment building in the Hamline-Midway neighborhood, Ernster said.

Paramedics pronounced the man dead at the scene, Ernster said.

No one has been arrested in connection with the city’s 18th homicide of the year.

Anybody with information can call police at 651-266-5650.

Pillsbury United said the grounds for termination included failure to meet requirements for student performance, governance problems and “failure to comply with all applicable laws.”

In 2024, just 1.3% of the students at LoveWorks were performing at grade level in math, while 7.1% were proficient in reading, state records show. Attendance last year averaged 61%, below the state average of 75%.

In his report, Allen noted that several critical teaching positions were filled by paraprofessionals “who were not qualified” for the jobs. He said the school also relied on “outdated and inconsistent instructional methods” that left students ill-prepared for advancement.

Allen said enrollment also was suffering from the school’s “reputation as a corporal punishment school,” noting its excessive use of “physical holds” and other “restrictive procedures” led to several complaints and state investigations. Enrollment at LoveWorks fell from 247 to 131 students over the past decade.

School officials appealed the revocation and met with Pillsbury United in late August, but the revocation notice says school officials “did not fundamentally challenge” the authorizer’s findings.

The school’s fund balance, the most critical measure of a school’s financial health, fell from $341,000 in 2022 to $39,860 in 2023. The school went into the red in 2024, according to board minutes, with its deficit topping $400,000 in May.