Cost of attendance has been driving would-be students from Texas away from TCU. The school hears you.
TCU is eliminating financial barriers for some of the state’s top students through a new initiative. Beginning with the Fall 2026 class, the university will offer full tuition and financial assistance for food and housing to qualifying Texas students as part of its newly launched TCU for Texans program.
The aid initiative will cover all tuition costs for incoming first-year students from Texas whose families earn $70,000 or less in adjusted gross income and meet additional eligibility criteria, including Pell Grant eligibility, and submission of required financial aid forms by Nov. 1, 2025.
“TCU for Texans opens our doors to the state’s best and brightest students who may have once considered a TCU education out of reach,” said TCU Chancellor Daniel W. Pullin in a statement. “If you have the drive and talent, we have the support.”
In addition to full tuition, the program includes support for housing, meals, and other needs, with aid renewable throughout a student’s college career based on annual reassessment of financial need.
The initiative builds on TCU’s LEAD ON: Values in Action strategic plan, which aims to broaden access to the university’s top-tier academics, student experience, and athletics. The school has quietly piloted the program over the past three years, providing aid to hundreds of academically strong Texas students. Now, with expanded capacity and formalized infrastructure, the program is a key part of the university’s push to support student-centered growth.
“As TCU continues to attract a student body from every state in the nation, we want Texan families to know they remain a bedrock at TCU,” said Heath Einstein, vice provost for enrollment management. “Academically talented Texas students can have confidence that a TCU education is attainable.”
TCU joins a growing number of Texas universities — including Rice, Texas A&M, UT Arlington, and Baylor — in offering full tuition or comprehensive aid packages for low-income, in-state students. TCU’s approach stands out in part because, as a private university, it charges the same tuition for in-state and out-of-state students: $63,500 in tuition and $18,020 for room and board for the 2025–26 academic year.
More than half of TCU’s incoming students are from outside Texas, and more than 1,400 undergraduates received Pell Grants in the 2022–23 academic year, according to federal data.