Happy February! I hope this message finds you well, even as we continue under extreme cold conditions in the northeastern United States. If you are in this region, I hope you are keeping warm.

Yale made major headlines this past week with an announcement that’s worth unpacking carefully.

The news:

• Students from households with incomes below $200,000 will now receive full tuition.
• Students from households with incomes below $100,000 will have their entire cost of attendance covered—tuition, room, board, and more.

With this move, Yale joins other Ivy League and peer institutions such as Princeton and MIT, which have made similar expansions to their financial aid policies in recent years.

So what’s actually new—and what hasn’t changed?

Some things remain the same. Yale is need-blind and has always committed to meeting 100% of demonstrated financial need for all admitted students.

What has changed is how need is defined.

Previously, Yale covered the full cost of attendance for students from families earning under $75,000, often with additional start-up grants. The new thresholds significantly expand eligibility.

According to Yale:

• Nearly 50% of U.S. households with school-age children will now qualify for a zero-cost Yale education, and
• About 80% of households will qualify for free tuition.

For context, Yale’s total cost of attendance for the 2025–26 academic year is approximately $91,000, with about $70,000 of that being tuition. These changes will take effect for students entering Yale this fall.

What does this mean for families whose students applied to college this year? Two key things.

First—and this is something our CFF College Fully Funded® students understand well—the biggest hurdle to attending Yale is not affordability. It’s admission. If you are admitted, your financial need will be met.

Second, and this is what many families don’t realize: institutions like Yale, its Ivy League peers, and similarly endowed universities such as MIT, Stanford, and Duke operate with what I call an expansive definition of wealth.

Many relatively high-income families come to me worried their children won’t qualify for financial aid. I explain that, because of this expansive definition, students from most families—if admitted—receive substantial aid, and their full demonstrated need is covered.

Which brings us back to the same conclusion: Getting in is the real hurdle.

Using our tried-and-tested, CFF College Fully Funded® framework, we have supported students in our curriculum-based college admission coaching program who were admitted to Ivy League institutions with full funding—100% of their need met.

If you have a serious high school junior who will apply to college in Fall 2026, you are interested in your child attending college without debt, and you’d like to explore working with us, feel free to reach out to start a conversation.

Wishing you a great month ahead.

To college fully funded,

Dr. Faith Okpotor Founder and CFF Head Coach National Center for Higher Education Access Award-winning academic and tenured professor

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