For some families, Harvard University just got a little bit cheaper. The Ivy League institute located in Cambridge, Massachusetts—which costs about $83,000 annually in 2024—recently announced tuition will be free for families whose income is below $200,000 per year. If you’re a family whose household income is less than $100,00, the venerated institution will basically pay for everything. And I do mean everything: tuition, housing, fees, travel costs, event and activity fees– and if you need some cold weather gear to adjust to the Boston winters, Harvard is covering that, too. They’ll even give you a $2,000 start-up grant to get you situated; all you have to do is get in.
Big picture, this is positive news.
That said, I doubt the Admissions and Bursar’s offices are isolated from each other.
I see no reason to believe there aren’t donors making their feelings known that there is a limit to how far the university can go with this. I’m thinking of the Jurassic Park lawyer smugly saying “We could have a coupon day.”