Duke University to offer free tuition to students from the Carolinas with family incomes below $150,000

Duke University is launching a program to make it easier for students from North Carolina and South Carolina to attend the school. Duke will offer free tuition to eligible students from the Carolinas, with family incomes below $150,000. Duke University Dean of Trinity College of Arts & Sciences Gary Bennett told Yahoo Finance Live about the program.

Transcripción del vídeo

- Student loan payments are set to restart this fall and that means those who haven't had to make payments since the pandemic are about to face a tough reality. The average payment is $400 a month, but one college is putting plans in place to ensure some future students won't face that such high financial hurdle.

Duke University is offering full tuition grants for undergraduates from North and South Carolina, but those of family income is $150,000 or less. Joining us now is Gary Bennett, dean of Duke's Trinity College of Arts and Sciences. Dean, good to talk to you today. Why make this move now?

GARY BENNETT: Well, look, we're just very, very eager to help students in North and South Carolina know that Duke can be an affordable option. We know that the process of applying to college and navigating all the challenges with financial aid can be very complex. And we want families to know that Duke is an affordable option and for them to consider us as an option for their students, if those students find their fit here.

- How many students is this expected to benefit and what do you expect the interest then to be like from the two Carolinas, from North Carolina and South Carolina, given the fact that an offering like this is hard to come by?

GARY BENNETT: Yeah. Well, look, the largest number of students at Duke are from North Carolina right now. About 340 students. And so we expect that we'll see more applications from North and South Carolina over the next couple of years. And if that happens, it would be a very welcome outcome for us.

- The conversation about high tuition costs, just the cost of a college education, has been ongoing magnified by what's been playing out with the student loan pause. What's your assessment, at least, when you talk about your University, about to what extent those high costs are keeping prospective students on the sidelines?

GARY BENNETT: You know, there are many, many of the 4,000 institutions in the US and each one has a slightly different profile with respect to its costs and its tuition charges. Here at Duke, we are very fortunate to be one of just over 100 institutions in the US that admits students without attention to their financial background. Those things are separate for us. We do admissions in one way and then we think about how to package students with a sort of an arrangement of financial support.

I think the other thing that's important to note for us is that we are one of a few institutions nationally that makes a commitment to meet 100% of our students' demonstrated need. So we're providing what we think of as very generous financial aid packages before this plan. The change here that we're making is that we want to be more clear with families in North and South Carolina about our commitment to affordability.

Again, we know this can be challenging for families and going through the FAFSA and all manner of forms and documentation, and we want families at the outset to know that if their students find a fit here and if they're admitted here, that this is an affordable and accessible option.

- Is there a way you think to slow what has been a very, very rapid increase in the cost of tuition? We just had it up on the full screen there over 80-- more than $85,000 if you were to pay full price, you weren't able to get qualified for any of that aid, that's how much you would pay per year and it's estimated. Is there more that can be done or should be done in order to slow the dramatic increase that we have seen year after year after year?

GARY BENNETT: I'd say every-- again, every college is a little bit different. I can tell you that here, this is something that we look at very closely each year. We do not increase tuition lightly. And we do our very best to try to contain those costs as much as we possibly can. I'd say that we and other institutions nationally have very generous supporters who believe that accessibility and affordability are our primary goal.

And I think one of the really important stories here is that more than 50% of our students receive financial aid of some type and almost a quarter receive full financial aid and with this plan we're committed to extending those financial aid offerings, so that irrespective of the ticket price of Duke that we remain affordable to institutions to students from a range of financial backgrounds.

- All this comes as there's a lot of uncertainty around the future of higher education. We've seen the warnings from a number of universities who've talked about that enrollment cliff that could be coming with college age students or potential students or demographics shifting with enrollment dropping as well. When you think about what lies ahead, how important is affordability to keeping your enrollment numbers steady?

GARY BENNETT: Affordability is absolutely critical both to keeping enrollment numbers steady but this is who we are, right? This is a core value for us as an institution. We believe that we provide an undergraduate educational experience that has the potential to be transformative. When you do my job for any amount of time, one of the things that you realize is that-- very, very quickly is that the ability to access a college education, it can be just completely transformative in the lives of students and their families. And importantly, and in the communities where they reside.

I mean, one of the reasons that we are doing this plan is that we know that students from these income backgrounds, they tend to choose colleges that are close to home and many of these students, when they graduate will choose to make their homes here in the region. So we think of this as both a commitment to our students and our families, but also to the communities where they live.

So affordability, I think, is a commitment. It certainly will help with enrollment. This is fundamentally, the access-- ability to access a high quality college education. It's just it's just critically important for, I think, our entire country.

- Gary Bennett, Duke University Dean of Trinity College of Arts and Sciences. Thanks so much.

GARY BENNETT: Thanks for having me.