Cornell Increases Tuition 3.76% Whilst Setting Budget Parameters
At its March 20 Board of Trustees meeting, Cornell officially set several budget parameters to be used to build a final budget for adoption at its May meeting. The new budget and tuition levels take effect on July 1.
Historically, Cornell would announce tuition levels in January, but the economic uncertainty prompted a delay in the announcement until March. The announcement now allows materials to be prepared for accepted students to compare the cost of attending Cornell with their other options.
Undergraduate tuition will be $73,946, except that in-state tuition in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, the College of Human Ecology, the ILR School, the Brooks School, and the Dyson undergraduate business program will be $49,816.
Average undergraduate housing and dining costs will be $21,348, a 3.76% increase reflecting rising costs for food, utilities, and employee wages.
The total cost of attendance in the endowed colleges will be $92,360 and $70,036 for in-state statutory colleges.
Although the overall cost of attendance will grow by 3.76%, Cornell intends to increase financial aid just enough to keep the net price (after considering financial aid) about the same as last year. There are no plans in the budget to enhance the depth of financial aid.
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The undergraduate student activity fee will remain frozen at $424 for the next two academic years.
The Cornell endowment exceeded $12 billion for the first time in February 2026, and Cornell has announced that the payout per endowment share will increase from $2.93 in 2025-26 to $3.12 for 2026-27. This represents a seven-year rolling average of earnings to calculate endowment payouts. This is the highest payout per share since the $3.00 payout in 2008-09. Endowment payouts have kept up with inflation. For example, a $10,000 scholarship endowment given in 1970 would have paid out about $300 in its first year. That endowment account today would have a market value of $85,640 and will pay out $3,120 or 3.6%.
Many of the big fiscal policy issues have yet to be announced, including the size of the faculty and staff salary increase pools, the extent to which deferred maintenance will be addressed, the pricing of Cornell’s internal utility rates, and Cornell’s undertaking of large new facility investments.
Nobody knows how the current economic environment will affect Cornell’s donor support. Nobody can predict federal support of research and of higher education in general. Cornell doesn’t know when it will be hit by the endowment tax. Finally, Cornell can’t predict the yield of new students from the pool of accepted applicants. Cornell will continue to juggle with these uncertainties until the budget is adopted in May.
