Texas students whose families make $70,000 or less annually will be able to get free tuition at Texas Christian University.
TCU for Texans will provide tuition and assistance for food and housing to eligible incoming first-year students starting in fall 2026. Students must be Texas residents, eligible for the Pell Grant and come from a family with an adjusted gross income of $70,000 or less.
“That number is important to me because that exceeds the average salary of the Texas public school teacher,” Chancellor Daniel Pullin told The Dallas Morning News on campus Tuesday. “So if you’re a child and, say, your parent has made a professional decision to educate the next generation of leaders that we need … you can come and be a Horned Frog.”
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The Education Lab
Tuition at the private school costs $63,500 for the upcoming school year, according to its website. Housing and food for an on-campus, full-time student is estimated to be $18,020 for the year. Nearly 80% of TCU’s students receive some form of financial aid.
In 2022, 384 first-year TCU students received a Pell Grant, a federal scholarship for students who have exceptional financial need, according to data from the National Center for Education Statistics.
The initiative comes as colleges across the nation are bracing for a projected drop in applications, in part because a reduced birthrate is expected to drive a decline in the total number of college-bound students. Texas, however, is projected to see an increase in high school graduates in the next decade, according to research from the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education.
“If we’re going to be as bold as a university to say we’re going to grow our student body by 5,000 students in a declining market, we really need to be excellent in recruiting and propelling students in Texas, where it is growing,” Pullin said.
In recent years, TCU has come to be defined by its growing out-of-state enrollment, with about half of the student body coming from other states in 2024, according to institutional data. California, Illinois and Colorado lead in the number of out-of-state students.
Enrollment at the school has surged in the last decade and is expected to continue to climb as the school undertakes a 10-year strategic plan for growth and impact. By 2035, TCU leaders aim to see a 3% increase in enrollment annually and increase the student body from around 13,000 to 18,000.
“Even though we’re a majority out of state at the university today, the majority of our students choose to stay in Texas. They fall in love with the communities. They build this network. They get to know our alumni. They see the career opportunities that Texas provides,” Pullin said. “And so if we can continue to connect what we do to our community … then we’ll be even more influential in how Texas evolves.”
The DMN Education Lab deepens the coverage and conversation about urgent education issues critical to the future of North Texas.
The DMN Education Lab is a community-funded journalism initiative, with support from Bobby and Lottye Lyle, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, Garrett and Cecilia Boone, Judy and Jim Gibbs, The Meadows Foundation, The Murrell Foundation, Ron and Phyllis Steinhart, Solutions Journalism Network, Southern Methodist University, Sydney Smith Hicks, and the University of Texas at Dallas. The Dallas Morning News retains full editorial control of the Education Lab’s journalism.