Harvard announced on Monday that it plans to offer free tuition for students whose families earn $200,000 and below, making it the latest elite school to expand financial aid after the Supreme Court banned the use of racial preferences in college admissions.
The plan with the new income cap will take effect starting this fall. Previously at Harvard, only families with incomes under $85,000 were offered free tuition.
The University of Pennsylvania announced last November that it would offer free tuition for students from families making under $200,000. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology also announced a $200,000 cutoff then, similar to a plan offered by Caltech. Other universities have also increased their financial aid limits in the past year, including Dartmouth, the University of Virginia and the University of North Carolina.
The Supreme Court decision banning affirmative action led to declines in the number of Black and Hispanic students at many schools, including Harvard. Last fall, the proportion of Black first-year students enrolled at Harvard declined to 14 percent from 18 percent the previous year, while Hispanic students’ enrollment increased slightly.
The ruling has posed a dilemma for schools that have argued that diversity is important, but that are now under intense scrutiny from the Trump administration, which is seeking to eliminate diversity efforts.
Richard Kahlenberg, director of the American Identity Project at the Progressive Policy Institute, said that improving financial aid packages makes sense for colleges that are looking to attract more Black and Hispanic students, since race and income are often intertwined.
“Now that universities can no longer employ racial preferences, if they want racial diversity, the best path forward is to boost the chances of admissions of nonwealthy and working-class students, a disproportionate share of whom are Black and Hispanic,” Dr. Kahlenberg said in an email. “To get such students to apply, and then to enroll, requires generous financial aid.”
In making the financial aid announcement, Alan M. Garber, Harvard’s president, mentioned neither the Supreme Court decision nor the White House’s ongoing assault on elite universities, which has resulted in dramatic funding cuts at many schools that receive federal dollars.
But he referred to the value of bringing a cross-section of people together.
“Putting Harvard within financial reach for more individuals widens the array of backgrounds, experiences and perspectives that all of our students encounter, fostering their intellectual and personal growth,” Dr. Garber said in the announcement. “By bringing people of outstanding promise together to learn with and from one another, we truly realize the tremendous potential of the university.”
The annual cost of attending Harvard, including tuition and housing, was almost $83,000 this school year. In addition to offering free tuition to students with family incomes up to $200,000, Harvard said that students from families that make under $100,000 will pay for practically nothing.
For those students, Harvard will cover tuition, fees, food, housing, travel costs between campus and home, event fees and activities, and health insurance, if needed. The university will also pay for “winter gear” to help students brace against harsh winters on Harvard’s Cambridge, Mass., campus, along with a $2,000 “start-up” grant.
Harvard’s announcement said that in addition to tuition, students from families making up to $200,000 could be eligible for extra financial aid, depending on their circumstances. The university also said that some students from families making more than $200,000 could be eligible for some forms of financial aid, depending on their family’s situation.
Harvard said it spent $275 million on financial aid this year, but did not have an estimate of how much its new plan will cost.
The push to expand financial aid as schools compete for students comes at a precarious time in higher education. Harvard’s announcement comes within days of the school saying that it would freeze hiring to gird against White House threats of funding cuts and tax increases.
Major cuts in international health and agricultural programs funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development have led to hundreds of layoffs at universities around the country, most notably Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
Wealthy universities are also wary of various proposals by congressional Republicans to increase the endowment tax on Harvard and other schools. Some have said that could hurt their efforts to offer financial aid.
Currently, the annual investment income earned by the endowment is taxed at 1.4 percent. Vice President JD Vance has proposed raising it to as much as 35 percent. (Mr. Vance himself received a generous financial aid package to attend Yale Law School.)
The Trump administration also moved to cap overhead reimbursements on National Institutes of Health grants to 15 percent, which could cut hundreds of millions of dollars that schools have come to rely on to cover facilities and staff. That proposal is being challenged in courts.
The overhead rates normally vary depending on the grant recipients, but in some cases, they provide up to 60 percent of the grant in additional reimbursements.
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