On March 5, Vice President for Finance and Administration Rob Goldberg sent a campus-wide email announcing that Swarthmore’s tuition and fees for the 2026-27 academic year was recently approved by the Board of Managers. Tuition will rise to $72,722 from $68,766, and total student charges — including housing, food, and the student activities fee — will reach $95,770.
The full breakdown for 2026-27 is the following: $11,676 for housing, $10,890 for food, and $482 for the student activities fee, amounting to a cost of attendance of $95,288. The increase in tuition alone represents a 5.75% jump from fiscal year 2026, close to the 4-5% annual increase the college had previously projected on its Financial Aid website. The cost of attendance saw a roughly 6.2% increase from FY 2026.
Goldberg’s email attributed the increase in part to rising operational costs, citing food and employee health care — of which the college absorbs 91% of costs as of September 2025 — in particular as areas seeing sharper inflation. Hirsch noted that while those costs continue to climb, Swarthmore has kept its tuition “around the middle of the pack” relative to peer institutions. Swarthmore’s new tuition of $72,722 sits roughly in line with the 2025-26 rates for other small liberal arts colleges. Williams College set tuition at $72,170 and Amherst at $73,140 for 2025-26, both prices exceeding Swarthmore’s rate of $65,928 from the previous year and remaining close to its new figure. Tuition rates for most peers in the 2026-27 cycle have not yet been published.
The college acknowledged in the same email that the actual cost of educating a student at Swarthmore significantly exceeds what students pay, with endowment funds subsidizing costs for every enrolled student regardless of financial background. The endowment currently supports approximately 60% of the college’s annual operating budget.
President Val Smith signaled in December that the college is entering a period of greater fiscal restraint, writing that it had drawn on operating reserves to cover rising expenses for too long. Early signs of that tightening include higher health insurance premium contributions from faculty and staff and a $476,000 reduction in departmental budgets across campus.
For students on financial aid, the college’s message was direct: the tuition increase does not change what they pay. “Changes to the College’s tuition, housing, food, and student activities fees will not increase a financially aided family’s contribution,” Goldberg wrote.
Vice President of Communications and Marketing Andy Hirsch elaborated on that commitment to The Phoenix. “For those who qualify for aid, we provide what they need to fill the gap between what they can afford and the cost of tuition and fees, so an increase in tuition does not increase a family’s contribution,” Hirsch wrote. The only circumstance under which a family’s expected contribution would be impacted, he explained, is when that family’s own financial circumstances change, such as when another sibling begins college.
Hirsch confirmed that more than 55% of Swarthmore students currently receive need-based financial aid, with average packages exceeding $75,000 per student recipient per year. This year, that amounts to a financial aid budget of more than $66 million. He noted that the budget grows each year and that the college’s obligation to meet full demonstrated need is not contingent on endowment performance in any given year. “If we were to experience negative returns, we’d still meet the full demonstrated need of our students,” Hirsch wrote.
The college practices need-blind admissions for all domestic students, meaning financial circumstances are not considered when an admission decision is made. For international students, Swarthmore is resource-aware but still commits to meeting 100% of demonstrated need for those who are admitted and meet the requirements.
Hirsch also addressed questions about middle-income families specifically. Using the Pew Research Center’s definition, which places middle-income household incomes as between roughly $56,600 and $169,800, he said the vast majority of those families at Swarthmore receive aid packages, with many covered in full. Families earning above that range can also qualify for aid under certain circumstances, such as having multiple children enrolled in college simultaneously.
“It’s also important to note that we don’t have a predetermined financial aid budget,” Hirsch wrote, explaining that need-blind admissions for domestic students means the college admits students first and sources the funding for their aid afterward.
In the past two years, several prominent institutions of higher education have announced that students from families earning under $200,000 per year will pay no tuition. In March 2025 and November 2024 respectively, Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology extended free tuition to families at or below that threshold beginning in the 2025-26 academic year. In January 2026, Yale University announced that families earning under $200,000 would receive scholarships meeting or exceeding tuition costs for students entering in 2026-27, with all costs covered for families under $100,000. The University of Pennsylvania, a member of the Quaker Consortium, extended its full-tuition threshold to $200,000 as well.
Asked directly whether Swarthmore has considered a similar model given the growth of its own endowment, Hirsch wrote, “I know at least a few institutions with those programs that have also announced tuition increases, and I suspect that’s the case at most, if not all of them.”
All of the aforementioned schools have raised their tuition just under 4% in tandem with the expansion of financial aid for families earning under $200,000.
At the “Endowment 101” session in September, Goldberg noted that in the 2024-25 school year and fiscal year, the budget spending per student reached nearly $143,000, significantly above the full cost of attendance without aid. Swarthmore’s endowment-to-student ratio, approximately $1.677 million per student as of Fall 2025, is among the highest in the country.
At the same time, Swarthmore’s endowment dependence means its fund management priorities differ from those of institutions that raise more from tuition or government funding. The endowment supports approximately 60% of the college’s annual operating budget, a share that has grown from 43% in 2012, largely driven by expanded financial aid and infrastructure investment.
Families who have experienced a financial change beyond their control may request a reconsideration of their student’s aid decision, Hirsch told The Phoenix. A form for that process is available on the Financial Aid Office website, and supporting documentation is required after submission.
For students on aid, the sticker price and the actual cost of attendance remain two separate figures. For those without aid, total charges for the coming year will rise to a new high.
