More than 870 colleges now advertise free tuition for some students, but a new Brookings Institution analysis finds most of these programs repackage existing financial aid rather than add new money. In a new research brief, economist Phillip Levine concludes that the biggest benefit of free tuition may be marketing: it tells families in plain terms that they won’t pay the sticker price that only 1 in 8 students actually pays.
Levine matched a Washington Post database of free tuition policies against federal IPEDS data and net price calculator results from 200 randomly selected four-year colleges. Of the 2,994 colleges in his analysis, 871 (29%) offer free tuition to some group of students, and those schools enroll about 42% of all students, according to Brookings. The programs range from campus-level offers like Rice University’s expanded $200,000 threshold to statewide programs such as New York’s Excelsior Scholarship.
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Why It Matters
Headlines about colleges charging more than $100,000 a year shape how families judge affordability, and Levine points to research showing Americans overestimate what students pay, particularly at public colleges.
Enrollment decisions change based on sticker prices even when a student’s own net price stays the same, the brief notes. A one-line guarantee is far easier to read than a financial aid award letter assembled from federal, state, and institutional sources. In the study, Levine cites experimental evidence where simplified affordability messages increased applications and enrollment despite little added aid.
The free tuition label has limits. Free tuition does not mean free college: across every category of school Levine studied, non-tuition costs for housing, food, books, travel, and personal expenses average $20,000 to $25,000 a year.
Levine warns the policies can create their own misunderstanding if students read them as covering everything, which leaves families exposed to room and board, the expense that has pushed college costs higher.
Who Actually Pays Less
Traditional need-based aid is progressive, meaning grant aid shrinks as family income rises. Levine tested whether lower-income students were already getting enough grant money to cover tuition before free tuition policies were a thing:
- At public flagship and R1 universities, that student received $16,900 in grant aid against $15,300 in tuition, still leaving a $19,100 net price on a $36,000 cost of attendance.
- Private colleges with very large endowments awarded $86,900 in grants against $70,300 in tuition.
- Tuition-dependent private colleges were the exception, with $40,800 in grants falling short of $52,100 in tuition.
Levine also tracked the 52 colleges in his sample that adopted free tuition between 2019-20 and 2025-26. Net prices for lower-income students fell at those schools, but they fell about $900 more at colleges that did not adopt a policy, which Levine says suggests free tuition had no sizable effect at that income level.
The families who gain sit in a narrow band just below each cutoff, where traditional aid would have fallen short of tuition. This is the squeezed middle class.
At public flagships, that band runs from $72,300 to $82,400 and it widens to $127,500 through $167,000 at private colleges with very large endowments, whose cutoffs sit far higher.
Every eligible student benefits only at tuition-dependent private colleges, yet just 6.8% of those schools offer free tuition, compared with 62.8% of public flagships, because they lack the resources, per Brookings. That gap is why a $250,000 threshold like UChicago’s makes headlines while most small private colleges stay silent.
Income Cutoffs Vary Widely
Public colleges set an average eligibility threshold of about $82,000 to $84,000, close to the 2024 U.S. median household income. Tuition-dependent and large-endowment private colleges average roughly $103,000 to $106,000, while the wealthiest private schools average $167,000, a level roughly 80% of households fall under. Those schools also require families to hold “typical assets,” a term Levine notes is not explicitly defined, and individual policies reach higher still, from Davidson’s $175,000 cutoff to Princeton’s $250,000.
Free tuition also has paperwork requirements. Eligible families must file the FAFSA every year, plus the CSS Profile at schools that require it, before learning what they’ll owe. Levine sums it up as a policy that simplifies the message but not the process.
How This Connects
The College Investor has tracked this wave school by school, from Harvard’s free tuition for families under $200,000 and Wellesley’s matching threshold to public programs like Texas State’s Bobcat Promise, now covering incomes up to $100,000.
Programs that cover more than tuition address the gap Levine flags: Boston University caps total costs at $20,000 for families under $200,000, and Rice covers tuition, housing, and food for families under $100,000.
Our running list of tuition-free colleges shows which schools fall into each group.
What’s Next
Levine argues these programs should be judged on whether they improve families’ understanding of costs, not only on whether they cut net prices, and he calls for transparency about the non-tuition bill.
With the 2027-28 FAFSA already open, families should run each school’s net price calculator at their actual income and compare full award letters, not tuition headlines. A free tuition promise from a peer school can also serve as leverage in a financial aid appeal.
Editor: Colin Graves
Robert Farrington is the founder of The College Investor and is widely recognized as one of the nation’s leading voices on student loan debt and saving for college. He holds an MBA from UC San Diego Rady School of Management and has spent over 15 years researching, writing, and advising on student loans, 529 plans, financial aid programs, and saving and investing for young professionals.
Robert has been featured in the The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, NBC News, and Forbes, where he has been a regular personal finance contributor for over a decade. His work combines both professional expertise and personal experience – he successfully navigated his own student loan repayment journey and has helped thousands of readers do the same.
He is committed to making the intersection of personal finance and education transparent and accessible. You can learn more about Robert on the About Page or on his personal site RobertFarrington.com.