Bargaining for a good education.

At a small midwestern liberal arts college, the parents of a prospective student dickered with the admissions director over a $50 difference in the financial aid packages between that school and a competing one. The school matched the competition.

That kind of negotiation over such a small amount of money would have been unheard of when those same parents went to college 25 years before. They were glad to get into any college back then, as schools were bursting at the seams with students. Today, however, all but the nation's elite schools are competing with each other to fill empty seats, since the number of entering freshmen is down 14% from a decade ago. Colleges are offering all sorts of incentives to bring in students, including cutting tuition costs or eliminating tuition for fifth-year advanced-degree students.

If your son or daughter is college material, schools want your offspring and many are willing to bargain to get them. That's good news in light of tuition costs that routinely have risen at more than double the increases in the general cost of living. The following are some ideas from the Institute of Certified Financial Planners, Denver, Colo., on how you can get a college to sweeten its financial aid package for your offspring:

Be the best and brightest. It helps if your child is a bright student, with a high grade-point average and excellent SAT and ACT test scores. Top students are courted with the same intensity athletic departments traditionally have used to attract the best prospects. Increasingly, colleges are handing out scholarships based on merit instead of need.

Find the right school. Pick one where your offspring's grade-average and test scores rank above the average of incoming freshmen. (These scores often are published in various college-rating guides.) The school will be more likely to...