By Elena Pejic, Associate Campus Editor • August 21, 2026

Boston University announced the “BU Promise” initiative Aug. 6, which will grant 100% of financial aid needs without loans for first-year domestic students. The program aims to increase transparency in financial aid packages and prevent finances from standing in the way of admitted students, according to BU’s financial aid website. 

“It’s really trying to make it much more easily understandable to create confidence,” said Rachel Lapal Cavallario, BU’s vice president of public relations. “Those are really the drivers … of family-first, student-first thinking to make sure that the program was clear to them at the outset.”

Starting in the 2026-2027 academic year, all admitted first-year students who are U.S. citizens will pay no more than $20,000 per year if their family makes under $200,000 a year and with typical assets, according to BU’s financial aid website. The new cost for qualifying students covers full tuition and a portion of standard housing and dining costs. 

The BU Promise also expands financial aid packages to households with lower incomes, as families that make under $75,000 can now receive a full-ride education at BU. With the new promise, any student’s scholarship or financial aid package is met without loans starting this year.

With the new program, students may still receive other scholarships or federal loans on top of their financial aid, the website states.

BU’s financial aid program previously met a student’s entire “demonstrated need,” but sometimes included institution student loans. 

The program follows a trend of private universities expanding their financial aid packages, including Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University and Tufts University, all of whom began offering full rides to students with under a $200,000 household income this past academic year.

In an interview with The Daily Free Press last spring, BU President Melissa Gilliam explained that the University also completed its financial aid project during the past academic year, but did not initially announce it publicly due to “where we were in the admission cycle.”

“We’re different than those schools,” Gilliam said. “We don’t have the endowment that they do, but we definitely have their same commitment to students.” 

BU students showed mixed reactions to the BU Promise, with several current students expressing disappointment that their financial aid packages are not updated to match the new policy for incoming students.

Junior Owen Butler said the new program feels like a tactic to keep up with other schools in the area and increase application numbers. He would have liked to see the initiative apply to all BU undergraduates retroactively, he added. 

Butler said he chose to attend BU because of the financial aid package the University offered, but he has been “less than pleased” with the accommodations he’s been given.

“BU is very generous with financial aid, but as a student who has gone through the financial aid processes on campus, the resources that they have are very sparse,” he said. “I just question if they have the capacity to truly take on a larger population of … students with financial need and if that’s really what they’re trying to do with this new policy.”

Sophomore Josh Eagle expressed frustration that only incoming students will reap the benefits of BU Promise, but said he sees the University’s efforts as a positive change for low-income families and the BU community.

“Am I a little salty that it’s only incoming first years? A little bit,” he said. “But that’s like saying if a cure came out for some deadly disease and I had it and died from it, or a family member had died from it, that doesn’t mean I don’t want a cure to still be found.”

Incoming freshman Kaylee Yau said she would like to see more opportunities for international students to receive scholarships. 

“It is inherently a privilege to be able to afford higher education, and even more so to be able to do it internationally where the fees are higher,” Yau wrote in a message to The Daily Free Press. “I do however wish that BU gave more opportunities for scholarships or some form of financial aid, as the tuition as an international student is still … crazy expensive.”

Nonetheless, many students see BU’s strides towards financial equality as a way to make the University more inclusive and achievable to hardworking students worldwide.

Incoming freshman Niku Joshi said that the BU Promise gives students a chance to think less about their financial situation when applying to college and more about what they could achieve inside the classroom.

“I think it’s very good for BU as a whole,” she said. “I think it really gives students the proper opportunity to put aside financials and really focus on what schools they want to go to.”

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