Topline
Duke University will offer full tuition grants to undergraduate students from North Carolina and South Carolina whose families meet certain income restrictions beginning this fall, the university announced Tuesday, as the cost of college education in the U.S. continues to skyrocket.
Duke University will begin offering full tuition grants to undergraduate students whose annual … [+] family incomes are $150,000 or less in the Fall.
Key Facts
Students from the Carolinas whose annual family incomes are $150,000 or less will be eligible for the grants, the university said.
Duke will also offer financial assistance for housing, meals and course materials to students from the Carolinas with family incomes of $65,000 or less—eliminating the need for student loan assistance for university costs on top of tuition.
The new aid—which will be funded through unspecified university resources—will be available to eligible undergraduate students from the Carolinas who are currently enrolled at Duke, as well as future students.
Undergraduate tuition for the 2023-2024 school year is $31,725 per semester or $63,500 for the year, according to the university’s website.
Big Number
340. That’s how many students Duke University expects will benefit from the program in the next academic year. The university had just over 6,500 undergraduate students in fall 2022, with more than 1,100 of them North Carolina residents—about 16% of the undergraduate student population. The university said another 160 students from the 2022-23 academic year were from South Carolina.
What To Watch For
The university predicted it will enroll more eligible students from the Carolinas in the next five years. In the upcoming school year, Duke will increase grant assistance by about $2 million and will likely invest an additional $6 million to $7 million per year to help meet the increased need in the next five years.
Key Background
Tuesday’s announcement comes at a time when university tuition costs continue to rise. Tuition and fees at private national universities have jumped 134% and out-of-state tuition and fees at public national and state have risen 141%, according to U.S. News & World Report. The average cost of one year of tuition at a private university is $44,433, nearly $20,000 less than at Duke. Meanwhile, millions of borrowers are awaiting a Supreme Court decision on whether they could receive up to $20,000 in debt relief under President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness program. The program has been on hold since last August due legal challenges and the court is expected to decide in late June or early July whether to uphold or strike down the proposal.
Further Reading
A Look at College Tuition Growth Over 20 Years (U.S. News & World Report)
