Following the release of The Daily Princetonian’s sixth annual Frosh Survey, Data writers and editors analyze and compare the data with other surveys, including past Frosh Surveys and Senior Surveys. See our previous ‘Dlog’ on the evolution of AI models seen through how first-years use AI in the classroom and on admissions essays here.
Following Princeton’s expansion of financial aid, approximately 65 percent of current students may receive financial aid in excess of tuition, according to estimates of parent income from The Daily Princetonian’s Frosh Survey.
Financial pressure on the University intensified earlier this year when the Trump Administration rescinded $210 million in federal research grants to the University on April 1, citing a federal investigation into antisemitism on campus. This semester, all departments and units have embarked on a round of budget cuts.
Still, on Aug. 7, Princeton University announced a major expansion of its financial aid policies: full cost of attendance for families earning under $150,000, no tuition for most families up to $250,000, and newly expanded aid for families earning beyond $350,000. This builds upon Princeton’s 2022 expansion of financial aid expansion announcement from 2022, which eliminated costs for students whose families made less than $100,000 per year and expanded aid for families making less than $150,000 per year.
The new financial aid changes came weeks after Congress approved an eight percent tax on endowments of universities with more than 3,000 tuition-paying students.
With the new expansion, Princeton may fall below this threshold. According to Frosh Survey data, about 3,770 students do not pay tuition, based on the percentage of sampled students who reported family incomes below $250,000 across the Classes of 2026, 2027, 2028, 2028, 2029 at the start of their first year.
That leaves about 2,100 tuition-paying undergraduates, in addition to a small cohort of graduate students (at most 400 in masters’ programs, as all Ph.D. candidates making sufficient progress towards their degree are fully funded).
Princeton’s expected family contribution is based on both wealth and income: Families pay five percent of wealth above $175,000, which this estimate does not account for. This could be a sizable share of families, especially near the cutoff of $250,000 in income. Accounting for sampling error, the estimate of 3,770 students is likely within 200 students of the true estimation. Accounting for bias in reporting — with up to 5 percentage points of students reporting their family income under $250,000 when it is actually over the cutoff — the estimation could be off by an additional 200–350 students.
However, with worst-case scenarios in all of these adjustments, Princeton would likely still fall within a few hundred students of the cutoff of 3,000.
With the new expanded threshold of $250,000, an average of 64.7 percent of survey respondents in each class year do not pay tuition. For these students, their grant from the University, which covers tuition before other expenses, is large enough that it exceeds tuition costs.
Data from the Frosh Survey suggests that the University is potentially closer than before to falling below the federal threshold of 3,000 tuition-paying students. If Princeton goes below this number, it becomes exempt from the 8 percent endowment returns tax — as well as the 1.4 percent rate they have been subject to since the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 was signed into law. An optimistic projection says it has; accounting for error, the University is likely still close. The aid expansion, as a result, may not only be about increasing affordability — it could also be financially strategic.
Diana Luu is a contributing Data writer for the ‘Prince.’
Please send any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.
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