Making Tufts More Affordable—and More Valuable

Many families want their children to receive the benefits of higher education, but fear that college is beyond their reach financially. 

To address such concerns, Tufts last year announced the Tufts Tuition Pact, which makes the university tuition-free for U.S. undergraduates whose annual family income is under $150,000 with typical assets.

But the university hasn’t stopped there. Through a range of approaches, Tufts is continuing to ensure that its offerings are accessible to as many students as possible.

“It is by design that the first pillar of our strategic plan articulates our commitment to economic inclusion,” said President Sunil Kumar. “It is critically important to our mission that we increase access to a Tufts education for students from families in the lower half of the socioeconomic spectrum.”

Increased Financial Aid

At Tufts’ undergraduate schools, despite annual increases in the official cost of attendance, the actual average cost for students has decreased in recent years. That’s thanks, in large part, to the growing amount of financial aid that Tufts provides. Tufts has also been for many years one of the few U.S. universities that meet 100% of demonstrated need for all admitted undergraduates. 

Last fiscal year, the total amount of undergraduate financial aid was more than $152 million, up from $111 million five years earlier. Tufts has been increasing the share of operating funds that is used to support financial aid, with the remainder of the financial aid budget provided by fundraising and the university’s endowment.  The result is that the increase in aid dollars has outpaced increases in the official cost of attendance. 

“Each year, we want to enroll the best students for Tufts—and our commitment to meet full demonstrated financial aid for all the students we admit helps us do just that,” said JT Duck, dean of admissions and enrollment management for the School of Arts and Sciences and the School of Engineering. 

The total financial aid for all schools at the university—undergraduate, graduate, and professional—was $237 million in FY26, up from $178 million in FY21. 

In addition to its positive impact on U.S. students from families earning less than $150,000 annually, the Tufts Tuition Pact also continues the university's previous policy whereby students from families earning less than $60,000 generally continue to receive packages with no loans. Further, many families earning well above $150,000 may still qualify for scholarships and grants that cover the cost of tuition, contingent on their circumstances.

“Prospective students and their families have told us, time and again, that the Tufts Tuition Pact has helped them understand how affordable Tufts could be,” said Duck.  

The university has also committed to increasing the percentage of students that it enrolls who are eligible for Pell grants. Those grants are part of a need-based, federal program that helps with college costs for low-income students. 

Between 2023 and 2025, the university increased its percentage of incoming first-year students qualifying for Pell grants, from 13% to 16%. (Inclusive of all four undergraduate classes, the university increased this percentage from 11% to 14% in the same timeframe.) And Tufts has committed to increasing—to 18%—the percentage of Pell-eligible students that it enrolls by the time the undergraduate class of 2033 matriculates in fall 2029, three years from now.

In addition, the university has for many years offered a Loan Repayment Assistance Program for degree recipients of any undergraduate, graduate, or professional school who select public-service and nonprofit careers.

Extending the Value of a Tufts Degree

Tufts also helps undergraduate students to gain experiences that add value to their degrees. A related option is the graduate certificate in business, through which eligible undergraduates can—at no additional expense—pursue coursework through The Fletcher School in areas like management, finance, and marketing. (Fletcher has plans to make this offering available as well to students at the university’s other graduate and professional schools.) 

Additionally, the credits undergraduates earn through the certificate can be transferred to Fletcher's graduate programs, to shorten the time required to complete those degrees. 

As another example, all undergraduates in the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts (SMFA) take courses at the schools of Arts and Sciences and Engineering, with liberal arts or STEM offerings complementing the students' studio practice. 

“For artists—or professionals of any kind—majors don't equal careers anymore,” said Leah Gadd, associate dean of academic advising and undergraduate studies at the SMFA. “That's why our students are benefiting from both their self-directed fine arts program as well as all the other options a major research university like Tufts makes available to them, so they're not wedded to a single discipline.”

“Nothing is off-limits to our graduates,” said Gadd.

Beyond the curricular offerings, numerous experiential opportunities are available to add value to undergraduate degrees. These include longstanding support for summer internships, often made possible by philanthropy; the growth of the School of Engineering’s co-op model and experiential learning program; and the pre-professional JUMP-IN program launched last year, which is now expanding to include both first- and second-year students.

Support for Graduate and Professional School Students

Several of the university’s graduate and professional schools also have affordability initiatives either in place or under way to suit the needs of their student populations. For example, The Fletcher School has established a university-administered low-interest loan program for high-merit international students—an offering that Fletcher will soon expand to include students from the U.S. 

At the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS), tuition scholarships are available to qualified students in most Ph.D. and master’s programs, and school-wide and department-specific funding opportunities and fellowships are available to select students as well. Further, the School of Engineering will soon also offer the Double Jumbo Alumni Scholarship, which provides a 20% tuition scholarship to Tufts alumni returning to pursue a master’s degree at the school.

Last year, the School of Medicine was named as the first medical school in the nation to partner with QuestBridge to provide significant financial support to exceptional students from low-income backgrounds who seek to become physicians. After the launch of the partnership, the first group of QuestBridge scholars matriculated into the MD program this July.

“The university’s strategic plan has inspired all of our schools to identify new and increased resources for financial aid and to be creative in supporting the next generation of professionals,” said Joseph Auner, provost and senior vice president ad interim. 

“Especially given the evolving landscape for federal loans, our deans and school leadership teams are leaning into our mission and our commitment to access, actively exploring strategic and innovative ways to make graduate and professional education as affordable and attainable as possible,” Auner said.

Inventive Academic Offerings

Other affordability-focused solutions appear in the form of specific academic offerings. The School of Medicine’s doctor of physical therapy program uses an accelerated, hybrid model designed to preserve academic rigor while reducing the expense of the credential. Hybrid and online degree programs are also available at other schools, including offerings at The Fletcher School and the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy as well as degrees that are jointly offered, such as a new master's degree in applied AI.

Accelerated programs offer another model. With Fletcher's combined bachelor’s/master’s program, Tufts undergraduates can get a head start on master’s degree coursework and graduate with two degrees in five years. Tufts undergraduates are similarly able to make significant progress toward a master’s degree in nutrition from the Friedman School while completing their bachelor’s degree. And for undergraduates who pursue fifth-year master's degrees, during that additional year of study in GSAS, the School of Arts and Sciences matches the tuition aid that those students had received as undergraduates.

Still more changes are on the horizon. Some of the university’s graduate and professional schools have begun rethinking their requirements in order to ensure that their students get what they need for their degree while minimizing its expense. The university is also exploring avenues through which it can reduce loan burdens for undergraduates to the greatest degree possible.

“Given all the legitimate concerns families have about the affordability of higher education, we fully understand the instinct to focus on the tuition number that makes the headlines or that impacts the college rankings,” said Kumar. 

“But the original mission for Tufts was to provide access to college for those who were unable to attend elsewhere. We steadfastly stand by that mission,” he said.  

However, the new initiatives and creative approaches to affordability are not sufficient in and of themselves, Kumar noted. 

“As we’ve done with the Tufts Tuition Pact, we must articulate our offerings in a clear and straightforward way. That is the goal toward which we strive,” he said. “Only then will our community truly understand how deep our commitment runs to problem-solving and innovation as we seek to make Tufts as affordable, accessible, and valuable as it can be for our students and their futures.”