University of Chicago Makes Tuition Free for Families Making Under $250,000

The University of Chicago will provide free tuition to students of families earning less than $250,000 a year, creating one of the most generous financial-aid offers in the nation at a moment when lawmakers and parents are scrutinizing the value of a college degree.

Colleges have been in a race to raise the income limits for free tuition in recent years. The university’s announcement on Wednesday explained the move as a way to make an institution with a $98,000-per-year sticker price more accessible to students from modest backgrounds.

“By deepening our commitment to affordability, we are helping to ensure that the brightest minds can join us,” Paul Alivisatos, the university’s president, said in a statement.

Chicago joins Princeton in raising its threshold for tuition to $250,000. Other selective schools have raised their income limits for free tuition to $200,000 in recent years, including Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Pennsylvania.

Some schools have hoped that improving socioeconomic diversity could help avert a loss of racial diversity after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down race-conscious admissions in 2023.

The free-tuition promises are meaningful because they help simplify the message around paying for college, said Sandy Baum, an expert on college finance with the Urban Institute, in an email.

“People think they will have to pay a lot,” she said. “They don’t understand the aid system. So they are much more likely to apply with this message.”

For a University of Chicago undergraduate living on campus, the cost of attendance includes $71,000 for tuition. The rest of the cost includes expenses like food, housing and fees. The university also said on Wednesday that it would cover those costs, in addition to tuition, for families with incomes of less than $125,000.

The university announced the new policy even as it faces financial troubles. The school has run budget deficits for many years, though it slashed the gap last year, partly by slowing down hiring. It remains $160 million in the red. School officials have said they are trying to close the gap by the end of the decade.