Late last year, several colleges and universities, including the University of Texas system and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, announced programs to provide free tuition for undergraduate students from families who fall below a certain income threshold. In March, Harvard said it would increase its free tuition threshold from $85,000 to $200,000.
Here are some of the schools that cover tuition for students from lower-income families and what’s behind these announcements.
Is tuition really free?
Each school administers its free tuition program in its own way, but the end result is that the cost of tuition is covered by grants and scholarships. These are not loans that students need to pay back.
Schools usually say that to qualify, a family’s income must be below a set amount and they must have assets typical for that income. So a family that makes under $60,000 a year but has millions in the bank may not qualify.
Some schools are also changing how they evaluate assets. The University of Pennsylvania said in November that it would no longer consider the value of the family’s primary home among its assets starting in the next academic year.
Where is free tuition being offered based on family income?
More than a hundred schools, including state schools and selective private universities, explicitly offer free tuition based on family income.
And these kinds of offers keep coming: Over two days in November, four schools and the University of Texas system made announcements about free tuition.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology said it would eliminate tuition in the fall for all undergraduate students from families earning less than $200,000 per year. The University of Pennsylvania said it was raising its family income threshold for full-tuition scholarships to $200,000 from $140,000. Carnegie Mellon and Brandeis University announced that they would waive tuition for students from families that earn $75,000 or less.
Sandy Baum, a nonresident senior fellow at the Urban Institute’s Center on Education Data and Policy, said that tuition has long been free for a large number of low-income prospective students. But students, and their families, often don’t know this.
“In many cases, it’s not about money,” Ms. Baum said. “It’s about a clear message.”
Free tuition financial aid packages are not new.
Most students do not pay the full sticker price for the colleges they attend, but the specifics can be difficult to figure out until an official financial aid offer is in their hands.
The announcements about “tuition-free” financial aid packages aim to make it clear that help is available for students from the lowest-income families.
Ms. Baum said that the schools that have expanded free tuition to higher income levels, such as the $200,000 threshold at M.I.T., may be providing extra money for families, but programs with lower thresholds have existed for decades.
“The families making thirty, forty, $50,000 a year, they were getting it free,” she said. “They’ve been getting it free for a long time.”
By doing more to publicize these opportunities, schools are hoping to attract students who may not have applied because they thought they couldn’t afford it, Ms. Baum said.
She said this became more important after the Supreme Court in June 2023 struck down race-conscious admissions policies for most colleges and universities across the country. Schools are looking for ways to ensure that students get to study in a diverse environment, but they can no longer consider race in admissions, so efforts to reach students who may not have the means to afford tuition can help.
There are other types of financial aid.
If a family’s income level is above the free-tuition threshold, there is still aid available.
Some schools promise to fulfill 100 percent of a student’s financial need by providing a combination of grants, scholarships, work-study offers and loans. Others pledge that all students, or just students from lower-income families, will not have to take out any loans at all.
These other forms of aid sometimes cover costly expenses, such as food and housing, which can make college unaffordable for some, even when tuition and fees are waived.
Some schools’ financial aid websites make it clear that there is a sliding scale for tuition assistance.
Stanford University, where students from families that earn $150,000 or less do not pay tuition, has a chart that shows how much aid is provided on average to people in each of several income tiers.
Any student who thinks a dream school is out of reach because of cost should spend some time on its financial aid website to see what help is available. Most schools also have a “net price calculator” to estimate the cost.
How does this work at state schools?
In November, the University of Texas system approved a plan to waive tuition at its nine academic institutions for undergraduates from Texas whose families earn $100,000 or less.
Many other state school systems offer similar benefits. All residents of New Mexico can attend public universities and colleges without paying tuition. The University of Wisconsin System waives tuition for state residents whose families earn $55,000 or less. At New York’s public colleges and universities, the threshold is $125,000.
Many states also cover tuition for students at community colleges and in certificate degree programs.
On average, since the 2009-10 academic year, first-time, full-time students attending a public two-year college have been receiving enough aid to cover tuition and fees, according to the College Board’s 2024 report on trends in higher education pricing.
What about the Ivy League?
Harvard brought attention to the free tuition programs in 2004, when it said parents who earned $40,000 or less would no longer need to contribute to the cost of their children’s education. It raised its cutoff from $85,000 to $200,000 in March.
Additionally, students from families that make under $100,000 will pay for almost nothing, the school said, because they will receive aid for things including housing and food.
At Columbia, the family income threshold for free tuition is $150,000; at Dartmouth and Brown it is $125,000; and at Cornell and Yale it is $75,000. Princeton said that tuition was covered for students in the class of 2025 whose families earned $160,000 or less.
Like Harvard, all of the Ivy League schools offer generous aid packages for families who earn higher incomes.
I think I qualify — how do I apply?
To take advantage of these programs, students almost always start by filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, form to give schools a picture of their family’s finances.
This involves providing financial information including tax and investment records; the current balance of savings and checking accounts; and information about special circumstances, such as job losses and high medical expenses. The form also accounts for other scenarios, such as if the student’s parents are incarcerated, the student left home because of an abusive environment or the student is homeless.
Some schools, including public colleges and universities in New York, require students to fill out a separate application or form. And some states, such as Oklahoma, require students to enroll in a program while they are in high school or middle school to qualify. Some public universities, such as those in New Mexico, don’t require an application.
Undocumented students can qualify for some, but not all, of these programs. Stanford says it “treats undocumented students as U.S. domestic students in the undergraduate admission process.” In New York and other states, undocumented students may apply for financial aid and scholarships to attend public colleges and universities.
Ms. Baum said it was important for schools to continue to publicize their free tuition policies and reach out to high schools to inform more students about them, so the benefits can reach the intended audience.
“It’s an ongoing effort,” she said. “It’s not just a one-time announcement.”
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