On June 1, Penn released its official cost of attendance and financial aid packages for the 2026-2027 academic year. With a 3.9% increase in undergraduate tuition, the total cost of attendance rose to $99,082 for on-campus students and $97,444 for off-campus students. This means that starting next year, it will cost nearly $100,000 a year to attend Penn and $400,000 to get a degree. For some, that price tag will linger long after graduation. It raises the question: What is the real cost of attending Penn?
Penn’s tuition has risen by over $20,000 in the past decade. That’s roughly a 50% increase in just 10 years. Now, three months before the fall semester starts, thousands of students must begin the harsh process of deciding how to afford their next year at Penn.
One of the University’s shining beacons of hope for prospective students is a purported “need-based” approach to financial aid. Penn states that it is “committed to making a Penn education accessible and affordable for all students” by meeting 100% of demonstrated. If this is true, why do 19% of students on financial aid still need to take out student loans? If one out of five students on financial aid are forced to risk going into debt to pay for college, clearly the system isn’t entirely need-based.
For students who aren’t eligible for financial aid, Penn automatically deems them and their families capable of paying $100,000 a year. If their families aren’t willing to pay that amount, it becomes the responsibility of the student. For reference, in order to make that amount of money after taxes, you would need to be paid $65-$70 an hour, 40 hours a week, for 52 weeks per year. At 18 years old. While being a full-time student.
That also assumes you never leave your dorm and — even more of a stretch — Penn doesn’t follow its past patterns of raising tuition again. Not only is this unrealistic, but it encourages students to view a Penn degree as a financial calculation rather than an educational experience.
We can try to justify and excuse Penn’s cost by equating it to the resources we gain, and that does have some merit. At Penn, you will receive a world class education, experience, and network that will serve you well for years to come. But are these experiences really worth nearly half a million dollars? Is any education worth that much?
Most students at Penn are driven, smart, innovative, and talented. It’s hard to believe that the students who are accepted into one of the most competitive and prestigious universities in the world are only going to be successful because of the university itself. We credit Penn for putting us on the right track, but it doesn’t seem right that a school supposedly committed to setting its students up for success starts by saddling them with decades of debt.
And, to ask the question we all think when we see the number on our screens rise each year, why? When private colleges around the country are lowering the cost of attendance to support their students, why is Penn raising it to six figures? It seems unlikely that a school with tens of thousands of donors every year, a new cost reduction plan, and a multi-billion dollar endowment also needs its students to go into debt to keep itself afloat. If it does — if Penn truly can’t support itself on the cost of attendance it had 10 or 15 years ago — that is an issue of financial mismanagement.
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It might be too simplistic to argue that Penn should just lower its overall cost. Indeed, the University’s recent cost-cutting measures come amid significant financial pressure as a result of the federal government. But if Penn claims to offer aid based on need, it cannot continue shifting the burden onto students and families.
Wealth, connections, and internships are often thought of as the natural products of a Penn education. For many students, though, there’s only one thing you can be sure of after graduation: debt. Student debt can feel inevitable, but the normalization of it masks its true effects. Debt can ruin a person’s life and change their entire perspective on their education. Penn has donors, endowments, and resources that go beyond anything we could imagine — so why is it that students are the ones paying the price?
The truth is, Penn can never be need-based with its current cost of attendance. Without a decrease in the overall cost, administrators can’t claim they are making education accessible and affordable for all students.
Editorials represent the majority view of members of The Daily Pennsylvanian Summer Editorial Board, which is entirely separate from the newsroom. Questions or comments should be directed to letters@thedp.com.
