Students whose families earn less than $75,000 will be able to attend Carnegie Mellon University tuition-free beginning next year.
Both new and returning undergraduate students are eligible for the new CMU Pathway Program, which university leaders announced Wednesday ahead of the Jan. 2 application deadline for undergraduate admissions.
“The CMU Pathway Program is a powerful investment in our students and the latest milestone in our ongoing efforts to expand access and affordability across our university community,” President Farnam Jahanian said in a statement.
University leaders pointed to years of work to grow the college’s financial aid budget. CMU has nearly doubled its investment in financial aid for undergrads over the past decade, from $76 million in 2015 to $141 million in 2024.
Glitches and delays in the federal financial aid process have created numerous barriers for low-income students trying to afford higher education. Errors in the system left many students to enroll in colleges without a complete picture of how they were going to pay for it and lowered aid application completion rates — an indicator of college enrollment.
Meanwhile, the Pittsburgh Promise, which provides high-achieving seniors at Pittsburgh public and charter schools up to $20,000 to attend Pennsylvania university and trade schools, has announced that it will end its scholarship program with the Class of 2028.
University leaders at CMU promised that all undergraduates whose families earn less than $100,000 annually will also be able to attend without taking out federal loans. The university will offer those students additional institutional grant funds in lieu of debt.
CMU reduced the share of students borrowing federal loans from 52% in 2019 to 28% in 2024, cutting each students’ total debt burden upon graduation to $18,200.
Students eligible for either track must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents.
“We believe that family finances should never prevent the brightest students from chasing their dreams and pursuing a world-class education at Carnegie Mellon University,” Jahanian said. “And now, thanks to the CMU Pathway Program, we are one extraordinary step closer to achieving this goal.”
