The published income at which a college stops charging you tuition.
TBThe College Application Specialist. Two Cornell Engineering degrees, a Certificate with Distinction in College Counseling from UCLA, and a PMP. Over $25 million in merit aid secured for families since 2015. Ten years guiding families through college admissions, and twenty-five in technical industries before that.
A family earning $190,000 has usually crossed the most selective schools off the list already. That assumption is wrong at a good number of them, and the schools publish the numbers that prove it.
Put your household income in. Every row your family clears gets marked.
This runs entirely inside your browser. Nothing is sent anywhere, nothing is saved, and I never see it.
These are published thresholds, not offers. Every one of them assumes what the schools call typical assets.
Sorted by the tuition line, highest first. A blank in the second column means the school publishes a tuition figure but no full-cost figure.
TouredI’ve walked this campus myself. Watch the campus tour library.
| Tuition free up to | Everything covered up to | School | Starts |
|---|---|---|---|
| $250,000 | $125,000 | University of Chicago | Now |
| $200,000 | $100,000 | Caltech | Now |
| $200,000 | — | Emory University | Now |
| $200,000 | $100,000 | Harvard University | Now |
| $200,000 | $100,000 | MIT | Now |
| $200,000 | $75,000 | University of Pennsylvania | Now |
| $200,000 | $100,000 | Rice University | Now |
| $200,000 | $100,000 | Yale University | Now |
| $200,000 | $75,000 | Washington and Lee Fall 2027 entry | Fall 2027 |
| $200,000 | — | Swarthmore College 2027–28 | 2027–28 |
| $175,000 | — | Bryn Mawr College | Now |
| $175,000 | — | Colgate University Fall 2026 | Fall 2026 |
| $175,000 | $85,000 | Davidson College Fall 2027 entry | Fall 2027 |
| $160,000 | $65,000 | Princeton University | Now |
| $150,000 | — | Mount Holyoke College | Now |
| $150,000 | $70,000 | Northwestern University | Now |
| $150,000 | $60,000 | Notre Dame | Now |
| $150,000 | — | Smith College Fall 2026 | Fall 2026 |
| $150,000 | $100,000 | Stanford University | Now |
| $150,000 | — | Vanderbilt University | Now |
| $150,000 | — | Wellesley College Fall 2026 | Fall 2026 |
| $100,000 | — | Macalester College Fall 2026 | Fall 2026 |
| $100,000 | $50,000 | University of Virginia Confirm terms | Now |
Notre Dame publishes a third tier. Families up to $200,000 get at least half tuition. It is the only school here that names a partial figure, and half tuition at a school that costs what Notre Dame costs is not a small number.
These are as real as the ones above and invisible to anyone outside the state. Two of them apply to families in this area.
| Who qualifies | Tuition free up to | Everything covered up to | School |
|---|---|---|---|
| North and South Carolina | $150,000 | $65,000 | Duke University |
| Virginia | — | $75,000 | University of Richmond |
| Missouri and southern Illinois | — | $75,000 | Washington University in St. Louis |
| Iowa | $100,000 | — | Grinnell College |
| The Four Corners region | Priced to match | — | Colorado College |
Duke covers tuition for Carolina families up to $150,000. A Charlotte family that assumed Duke was out of reach on price has been reading the sticker, not the policy. Colorado College is the odd one: instead of naming a dollar figure, it prices itself against the leading public universities in its region for households under $250,000.
These numbers look like the ones above and behave differently. An average describes families who already got aid last year. It is not a commitment to your family.
| School | What they actually publish |
|---|---|
| Brown University | A $0 parent contribution for most families under $60,000, and a minimum scholarship commitment up to $125,000. The $125,000 figure is an aid floor, not a tuition guarantee. |
| Cornell University | No expected parent or student contribution for most families at or below $75,000, met with grants and work-study rather than loans. Not framed as a tuition-free guarantee. |
| Bowdoin College | Median net price by income band for first-year aided students. Historical medians, not guarantees. |
| Carleton College | Average aid and out-of-pocket cost by income band. Packages may include loans and work. |
| Hamilton College | Average aid by income band and the share of tuition it covers, for families who qualified for aid. |
| Johns Hopkins University | Families at or below $100,000 may be tuition-free. The published wording is conditional, and I could not confirm current universal terms. |
Every school here commits to meeting demonstrated need. None of them tells you in advance what that means at your income, which is why they can’t be compared to the tables above.
| School | What they commit to |
|---|---|
| Amherst College | Meets 100% of demonstrated need without loans |
| Barnard College | Meets 100% of demonstrated need through grants, loans and jobs |
| Bates College | Meets 100% of calculated need through grants, loans and employment |
| Boston College | Need-based aid with no income cutoff for eligibility |
| Claremont McKenna | Need calculated from FAFSA, CSS Profile and tax returns |
| Georgetown University | Need equals cost of attendance minus family responsibility |
| Haverford College | No loan expectation below $60,000. The threshold affects loans, not tuition. |
| Middlebury College | Meets 100% of demonstrated need. Income tiers affect loans, not tuition. |
| Pomona College | Meets full demonstrated need for eligible students |
| Trinity College | Meets full calculated need. Its full-tuition scholarship is merit-based, not income-based. |
| Vassar College | Meets 100% of full demonstrated need |
| Wesleyan University | Meets 100% of demonstrated need without loans for eligible recipients |
| Williams College | All-grant aid, no required loans or campus employment |
Typical assets. Nearly every policy on this page carries that phrase. A family at $150,000 with a rental property, a business, or a large brokerage account may not qualify while a neighbor at the same income does. Home equity and retirement accounts are treated differently at almost every school, and Notre Dame is one of the few that says outright it excludes retirement accounts.
Tuition is not the bill. Where the second column is blank, housing, meals and fees are still yours. At a school charging what these charge, that is real money on top of a tuition-free headline.
You still have to get in. Most of the schools on this page admit a small fraction of applicants. A generous aid policy at a school your student will not be admitted to is not a plan.
Dates matter more than families expect. A policy that starts in fall 2027 covers a student applying this year. One that started in fall 2026 does nothing for a student already enrolled. Check which class year the policy names before you count on it.
These are thresholds, not offers. Every school requires an aid application and its own review. Run each school’s net price calculator before you assume anything on this page applies to you.
Fall visit dates and application fee waivers are tracked on a separate page.
Knowing which of these your family clears is one question. Knowing which ones your student can be admitted to, in what order to apply, and what happens to the number when there are assets behind the income, is the rest of it.
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