Students

In an effort to make higher education more accessible, MIT has announced that undergraduate students with families earning less than $200,000 per year will receive free tuition beginning fall 2025, reports Alexandra Petri for The New York Times. “We believe MIT should be the pre-eminent destination for the most talented students in the country interested in an education centered on science and technology,” explains Stu Schmill, dean of admissions and student financial services, “and accessible to the best students regardless of their financial circumstances.” 

Undergraduate students with a family income of less than $200,000 can expect to attend MIT tuition-free starting fall 2025, reports Maria Papadopoulos for Boston 25. “MIT is one of only nine colleges in the US that does not consider applicants’ ability to pay as part of its admissions process and that meets the full demonstrated financial need for all undergraduates,” Papadopoulos reports. “Graduates benefit from the lifelong value of an MIT degree, with an average starting salary of $126,438 for graduates entering industry.”

Undergraduate students at MIT with families earning less than $200,000 can expect to attend MIT with free tuition beginning fall 2025, reports Travis Anderson for The Boston Globe. “The $200,000 threshold for free tuition was raised from the current level of $140,000, while the $100,000 threshold is an increase from this year’s ceiling of $75,000,” Anderson writes. “MIT said it has earmarked $167.3 million for need-based financial aid this year to undergraduates, up roughly 70 percent from a decade ago.”

Undergraduate students with a family income of less than $200,000 can expect to attend MIT tuition-free beginning fall 2025, reports Leah Sarnoff for ABC News. “Additionally, students whose family income is below $100,000 will see their entire MIT experience paid for, including tuition, housing, dining, fees and an allowance for books and personal expenses,” writes Sarnoff. 

As part of an effort to increase affordability for students and families, MIT undergraduate students with a family income below $200,000 a year can expect to attend MIT tuition-free, starting in fall 2025, reports Emily Piper-Vallillo for WBUR. “Many families are concerned about the cost of college,” says Stu Schmill, dean of admissions and student financial services. “We really want to send a message that coming to school at MIT is affordable and that cost should not stand in the way of a student applying.” 

WBUR’s Maddie Browning spotlights the MIT Student Lending Art Program, which allows undergraduate and graduate students to bring home original works of art from the List Visual Arts Center for the academic year. “I really felt like every student had a deeper relationship with the work after having lived with it for a period of time,” says Gwyneth Jackman, marketing coordinator for the List. “I think that they really care for these pieces. And I think that they know how wonderful of an experience and opportunity this is.”

MIT ranks high on the Forbes’ America’s Top Colleges list of colleges providing the best ROI, reports Forbes’ Francesca Walton. Walton notes that MIT offers its students “stellar ROIs.” The magazine applied various economic metrics to Forbes’ top 500 colleges list, yielding “25 schools that offer a low-debt education and promise high earnings potential,” Walton explains. 

MIT ranked third in a list of "2025 Best Value Colleges in America" reports Aislinn Murphy for Fox Business. Education data website Niche compiled a list ranking more than 1,000 four-year colleges and universities using various economic metrics. It also named MIT as best in academics.

The Logarhythms, a student a capella group at MIT, have debuted “Log Log Land,” a movie that takes a musical journey through the experiences of students grappling with their interest in pursuing the arts, reports Emily Wyrwa for The Boston Globe. Undergraduate student Reuben Fuchs - who wrote, directed and edited the film - hopes “Log Log Land” serves as "a reminder to people that putting time toward their passions is always important, regardless of their careers,” writes Wyrwa. “I hope people see bits of themselves in the movie,” explains Fuchs.
 

MIT graduate student Jerry Lu and University of Virginia Prof. Ken Ono are developing new techniques to help swimmers competing at the Paris Olympics glide through the water even faster, reports Davide Castelvecchi for Nature. Lu and Ono created 3D models of the athletes and then suggested “tiny changes that can shave off precious fractions of a second at every stroke." 

Writing for Scientific American, graduate student Jerry Lu and his colleagues explore the mathematics, physics, and sensor technology that have revolutionized competitive swimming. “Today the advent of sensor technology has turned this idea into a reality in which mathematics and physics produce useful information so that coaches can ‘precision-train’ 2024 Olympic hopefuls,” writes Lu. “The results have been enormously successful.”

NBC News reporter Alex Koller spotlights Noubar Afeyan PhD '87 and the messages he shared as commencement speaker for the 2024 MIT graduating class. "I'm utterly unreasonable and an eternal optimist," said Afeyan, adding that to tackle improbable challenges having "a special kind of optimism" can help. 

Graduate student Dhruv Gaur speaks with Boston.com reporter Lauren Daley about his viral message expressing support for Alex Trebek when he competed on “Jeopardy” in 2019, and his experience being invited back for the show’s first invitational tournament. “I listened to a ton of podcasts — old pop culture from the ‘70s ‘80s and ‘90s; history, Shakespeare,” says Gaur of how he prepared for the tournament. “I got really into quiz games on my phone or computer. I was shocked that nobody realized what I was doing because anytime I got a free second I’d be doing a quiz, or asking friends to go to bar trivia.”

MIT has been named to the number two spot in Times Higher Education’s world reputation rankings, reports Times Higher Education. MIT is “dedicated to the teaching of science and technology. The sheer number of Nobel laureates affiliated with the institution – an impressive 101 – reveals the caliber of MIT graduates,” Times Higher Education notes. “Scientific discoveries and technological advances to come out of the college include the first chemical synthesis of penicillin, the development of radar, the discovery of quarks and the invention of magnetic core memory, which aided the development of digital computers.”

In a letter to the editor of The New York Times, Alfred Ironside, the MIT vice president for communications, addresses the necessary role staff play at MIT. “At MIT, the research and education enterprise requires far more to thrive than our outstanding faculty alone,” writes Ironside. He adds that the Institute’s staff are essential to “running a top-flight research organization where breakthrough discoveries and innovations provide continuous service to the nation.”