Hopping on the Affordability Bandwagon

For students worried about the cost of attending a selective college, last week was a bonanza. On Tuesday, the University of Pennsylvania and Brandeis University both announced they were expanding their financial aid programs to a broader range of students. The next day, Carnegie Mellon, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the entire University of Texas system did the same. The plans will make more lower- and middle-income students eligible for free tuition, with some raising the family income threshold to $200,000. Those five institutions join dozens of others that have rolled out similar initiatives this year: Dartmouth, Vanderbilt, Colby College, Duke, Columbia, Richmond and the Universities of Virginia and North Carolina, to name just a handful. So what’s behind the flurry of affordability initiatives?