What do high-end vodka brands, must-have handbags and private colleges have in common? They all appear to raise their prices as a way to enhance their status.

When a private college drops more than five spots below its typical level in the U.S. News & World Report rankings, it raises its tuition, according to a study published recently in the Administrative Science Quarterly. This contradicts previous theories on products and organizations, which suggest that when something loses status, its price should go down, said Noah Askin, one of the authors of the paper. Instead, colleges are doing the opposite, said Askin, an assistant professor of organizational behavior at French business school INSEAD, using a price increase “as a way of trying to signal they’re something they might not be.”

While it might seem counterintuitive, this behavior, known as the Chivas Regal Strategy, is relatively common, particularly in the luxury goods market. Named for a brand of whiskey that supposedly doubled its sales by doubling its prices, the tactic involves raising the price of a good so that it appears to be worth more. The higher price lends an air of exclusivity, so the theory goes that customers will rush to get their hands on the product even if it’s not actually worth more. The strategy has proved so successful in the past for vodka brands, high-end fashion designers and others, that even bottled water companies appear to be tapping into it.

The idea of using price as a status symbol seems in particularly poor taste in an era of growing outrage about soaring tuition and student debt. And yet some former college officials admit to using the tactic. Here’s how Kevin Carey, the director of the education policy program at New America, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank described the philosophy of former George Washington University President Stephen Trachtenberg in a recent New York Times essay:

“Mr. Trachtenberg convinced people that George Washington University was worth a lot more money by charging a lot more money. Unlike most college presidents, he was surprisingly candid about his strategy. College is like vodka, he liked to explain. Vodka is by definition a flavorless beverage. It all tastes the same. But people will spend $30 for a bottle of Absolut because of the brand. A Timex watch costs $20, a Rolex $10,000. They both tell the same time.”

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Of course Trachtenberg and others employing the strategy use the money to invest in capital improvements, attract prominent faculty and other tactics that would actually make the university better. Still, that doesn’t mean they weren’t sending a message as well, said Matt Bothner, a co-author of the paper.

“They could raise price and use the added revenue to make actual investments. We’re not denying that they do that,” said Bothner, a professor of strategy at the European School of Management and Technology. “But there’s evidence that there’s a signaling component to this.”

Not all colleges engage in this behavior. Askin and Bothner’s study is focused on U.S. News & World Report’s ranking of private colleges and universities from 2005 to 2012 and Aksin noted that there’s typically not much movement at the very top of this list. In other words, you’re unlikely to see a Harvard raise its prices for status reasons because Harvard is unlikely to drop precipitously in the rankings.

There are likely other factors at play. For example, a working paper recently published in the National Bureau of Economic Research suggested that increases in access to financial aid influenced colleges to raise their prices. And if a school’s peer institutions are already expensive, it has room to raise its prices.

Robert Morse, the chief data strategist at U.S. News & World Report disputed the study’s findings in an emailed statement.

“Tuition policies at schools are determined by many institutional specific factors and not by whether a school has fallen in the U.S. News rankings,” he wrote.

But according to Askin and Bothner’s research, a drop in rankings pushes a private college to boosts its prices about 1% more than it would otherwise. “When you’re talking about $50,000 a year tuition that’s not an insignificant amount of money,” Askin said.