Ivy League Applicants Learn the Net Cost of Each School
On March 26, Cornell admitted the bulk of the 5,776 members into the Class of 2030. These students had until May 1 to select among their multiple offers to attend college. Only now, after working hard to be accepted to an Ivy League school, did they learn the true “net price” of their education.
Historically, the Ivy League announced their tuition and cost of attendance in January, and those prices were increased in lock step. The limited amount of financial aid available limited the choices of many qualified students. Financial aid was limited by income from scholarship endowments, federal programs such as Pell Grants, state programs limited to New York State residents, and annual giving for scholarships.
RELATED: Cornell Lags in Financial Aid
Today, a majority of Cornell students receive financial aid, and Cornell artificially raises tuition levels so that those students who pay the full freight subsidize the financial aid of other students. Because each Ivy has a different endowment size and there are limits to how high the list price of a college can increase, each Ivy has a very different depth in its financial aid formula. The result is that Ivy League schools have widely different “net prices.” Although the advertised cost of attendance, which was only made public shortly before the acceptance notifications were released, a student’s selection of college will be based on his own financial aid offer.
Cornell promised to send each student who is accepted in the regular admission process a personalized financial aid package in early April, so that they could make their decision to attend before the May 1 deadline.
The 5,776 offers include a number of early decision offers that were accepted in January. To avoid the unfairness of expecting students to accept Cornell without knowing what the tuition and financial aid will be, Cornell allows early decision students to withdraw and attend another school if Cornell cannot provide them with sufficient financial aid. (In the Class of 2029, Cornell University accepted 1,889 students in early decision, with an acceptance rate of 18.78%. The number for Class of 2030 has not been announced.)
Because Cornell has both the lowest total endowment per student in the Ivy League and the lowest scholarship endowment per student, it will be more difficult to compete for out-of-state students. The one notable exception is that the in-state tuition at Cornell’s four statutory colleges is much lower, as a result of a subsidy received from SUNY’s annual budget appropriation. Although tuition levels are set to be uniform for all out-of-state undergraduates at Cornell, the financial aid budget is set separately for each undergraduate college, reflecting the separate scholarship endowment holdings of each college.
Cornell pioneered the concept of a “no loan” financial aid package, and Cornell now includes student loans in aid packages based on the following table:
| Total Family Income | Maximum Loan Offer |
| Under $75,000 annually | $0 |
| Between $75,001 and $125,000 annually | $2,000 |
| Between $125,001 and $175,000 annually | $4,000 |
| Above $175,000 annually | $6,000 |
Other Ivies are completely loan-free.
So, what do Cornell’s peer institutions, with smaller enrollments and bigger endowments, offer?
Other Ivies have placed an emphasis on avoiding student loans as an element of financial aid. Dartmouth has announced a new financial aid initiative to eliminate parental contributions for families earning less than $125,000 per year. All of the Ivies promise “free tuition” for low-income students, but have different cut-offs for that policy. However, each Ivy offers varying degrees of financial aid for room, board, and other costs.
Most colleges offer at least two ways to estimate their financial aid package in advance of receiving an actual offer from each accepting school. There is the MyTuition Cost Calculator (which appears to be set to work with the 2025-26 data. Each Ivy also offers a Net Price calculator that has been updated for 2026-27. We used the latter option to generate the table below.
We ran the same hypothetical family against each calculator and selected both Arts & Sciences and ILR to see if there was any difference at Cornell. Assuming one child in a two-parent New York household, a $120,000 family annual income, a $100,000 house, and a $50,000 home mortgage, the financial aid packages are projected to be:
| Name | Student Loan | Family Contribution | Student Employment | Grant | Net Price |
| Princeton | $0 | $0 | $0 | $94,310 | $0 |
| Dartmouth | $0 | $1,000 | $2,450 | $91,780 | $3,450 |
| Harvard | $0 | $5,000 | $3,500 | $86,834 | $8,500 |
| Yale | $0 | $9,100 | $1,600 | $78,700 | $12,800 |
| Columbia | $0 | $12,324 | $3,090 | $81,740 | $15,414 |
| Penn | $0 | $17,400 | $3,500 | $75,900 | $20,900 |
| Cornell (endowed) | $2,000 | $14,442 | $5,000 | $70,918 | $21,442 |
| Cornell (in-state) | $2,000 | $14,442 | $5,000 | $48,594 | $21,442 |
| Brown | $0 | $20,654 | $2,950 | $69,592 | $23,604 |
(Yale is using 2024-25 data.)
The table is ordered by “Net Price,” that is, the sum of student loans, family contributions, and student employment. Because Princeton has a very high endowment per student, our hypothetical family will attend with all costs covered by Princeton scholarships. At the opposite end of the range is Brown, which expects parents (plus student summer earnings) to pay $23,604 per year.
As students who have been accepted to more than one school get financial aid offers, they are free to show Cornell the competing offer, and Cornell will try to match it. So, the generosity of the competing financial aid formulas should not prompt a student to select one school over the other.
These prices are for undergraduate degree programs. Graduate and professional programs have a higher Net Price. International students generally do not receive financial aid.
