What Colleges Look For In 2026-27: Test Scores Are Back And Legacy Is Fading

Several of the most selective colleges have adopted generous financial aid policies that provide free tuition to low- and moderate-income students. Depending on the college, the income threshold for free tuition ranges from $100,000 to $250,000.MIT was the first to offer free tuition for families with income under $200,000 starting with the 2025-2026 academic year. Harvard matched the offer within months. Since then, other colleges have announced similar policies for the 2026-2027 academic year, including Rice at $200,000 and the University of Chicago at $250,000.Here’s a ranked list of the top offers, why colleges are doing this, and how the gaps between these policies create a new angle for financial aid appeals. If you’re still early in the process, start with how the college admissions process and financial aid fit together.

Colleges have a "type" of student they are looking for when they make admissions decisions, and not all of it shows up on the application checklist. Understanding these factors can give you a real leg up in the college admissions process this fall.Getting in is harder at the top than it has ever been. The average acceptance rate at four-year, not-for-profit colleges was 73% in fall 2022, according to the National Association for College Admission Counseling. Most Ivy League schools admit in the single digits (see our breakdown of Ivy League acceptance rates and why acceptance rates keep falling).Schools talk openly about academic performance, extracurricular involvement, and the personal essay. Other factors get far less airtime, even though most schools disclose them if you know where to look. Below are the factors colleges weigh most, seven less obvious ones that can tip a decision, and how to check what any school on your college list actually values.

A bipartisan House bill would add farm and ranch work to the list of jobs eligible for Public Service Loan Forgiveness. H.R. 9974, the Young Farmer Success Act, was introduced by Rep. Glenn Thompson (R-PA) alongside Reps. Joe Courtney (D-CT), Monica De La Cruz (R-TX), and Nikki Budzinski (D-IL), and referred to the House Committee on Education and Workforce.The text of the bill amends Section 455(m)(3)(B) of the Higher Education Act to treat full-time work as an “employee or manager of a qualified farm or ranch” as a public service job. A qualified operation is one with at least $35,000 in gross revenue from agricultural product sales in 2026, indexed to inflation in later years. Borrowers would still need 120 qualifying payments, the same rule that applies to every other job category on the PSLF list.

The Treasury Department and IRS released proposed regulations that would deny 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status to any private school that “adopts, maintains, or enforces” a policy discriminating on the basis of race, color, or national or ethnic origin, including policies designed to benefit minority students.The proposed rule focuses on admissions, scholarships, student loans, athletics, and every other school-administered program. The agencies estimate it could affect as many as 18,000 private schools and roughly 750,000 students who may qualify for race-based scholarships. This is happening as the Trump Administration is pushing back against race-conscious education policy.“Schools rebranding race-based preferences as equitable, inclusive, or diversity-enhancing does not change their discriminatory nature,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in the announcement, first reported by the Daily Caller.The regulations would apply to taxable years beginning after May 31, 2027, which the IRS says gives schools time to rewrite policies. This makes sense after the policy debate that came when the administration tried revoking Harvard’s tax-exempt status in 2025.

Both fall quarter sections of MATH 2 at UC San Diego are full, and 175 students are sitting on waitlists. A screenshot of the campus booking system posted this week to the r/UCSD subreddit shows one 180-seat section at zero availability with 99 waitlisted, and a second 10-seat section with 76 more waiting. That puts roughly 365 incoming students in or chasing a class that awards no degree credit. This aligns with what the college reported last year about collapsing freshman math skills.MATH 2 sits below precalculus. The UC San Diego course catalog describes it as “Introduction to College Mathematics,” a four-unit class covering linear relationships, exponents and polynomials, rational expressions, and basic geometry and trigonometry. However, most people understand it’s a catch-up class designed to cover math topics generally addressed in Grades 6-12.Students land there by scoring low on the school’s Math Placement Exam. Since UCSD and other UC schools don’t use standardized tests for admissions, students are required to take a math placement exam before enrollment to truly understand what grade level of math they should be going into. The grade inflation that pushed high school GPAs upward has simply magnified the results of this exam.

Texas State University is doubling the income limits on its free tuition program. Starting with the Fall 2027 entering class, first-time freshmen who graduate in the top 25% of their high school class and have a family adjusted gross income of $100,000 or less will qualify for free tuition and mandatory fees under the expanded Bobcat Promise.That makes Texas State a part of a growing list of colleges that have made tuition free for qualifying families.The university expects the expansion to benefit roughly 3,400 incoming freshmen. Students from families earning $50,000 or less remain eligible regardless of class rank, keeping the program’s original focus on Texas students with the greatest financial need.

Bill Gates published a 6,000-word essay on the AI transition, calling it “one of the most turbulent times in human history” and arguing the world has no real plan for it. He organizes the essay around three key risks (permanent job losses, AI-empowered bad actors, and damage to how kids develop and their education), at a moment when AI anxiety is already boiling over on campuses.The line that should stop educators cold: Gates writes that the same tool that will allow people to learn more than ever “could also lead to many people learning less.”He points to a preliminary survey that associated heavier AI use with weaker critical thinking, with the effect strongest among younger users.

Arizona State University has launched a Bachelor of Arts in Content Creation through its Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, available at its downtown Phoenix campus, online, and through ASU Local. Coursework covers video and podcast production, audience analytics, brand voice, monetization, copyright, plus hands-on work through a Los Angeles Content Studio and brand content projects.Critics immediately branded it the “influencer degree,” reviving the debate over whether college is worth the investment at all.According to reporting from the Associated Press, the curriculum overlaps heavily with ASU’s existing mass communication degree, with the main difference being specialized electives in podcasting, studio production, and on-camera presence.ASU isn’t first, either: St. Bonaventure University announced a content creation major last winter, and Syracuse, Quinnipiac, and Colorado State offer minors. It’s part of a broader push by schools to add career-coded majors as more students choose work over college.

A new NBER working paper finds that Tennessee Promise, the nation’s first statewide free community college program, increased college enrollment, boosted degree completion, raised early-career earnings, and generated enough new tax revenue to more than cover its cost. The researchers estimate the program’s marginal value of public funds is infinite, meaning every public dollar spent produced positive benefits at no net cost to the government.The study, from economists at the University of Tennessee, Saint Mary’s College of California, and the Tennessee Office of Evidence and Impact, tracks the program from its 2009 single-county pilot in Knox County through statewide rollout in 2015. Tennessee’s model became the template for the more than 20 states that now offer some version of free community college, most using the same last-dollar structure.The program’s design is simple by financial aid standards. Any Tennessee high school graduate qualifies regardless of income, grades, or field of study, as long as they apply on time, complete mentoring and community service requirements, and enroll at a community college or college of applied technology the fall after graduation. That simplicity make it easy for students to benefit.

Four Senate Democrats want the Department of Education to provide answers on how it spent a $1 billion student loan administration fund created by last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. In a September 2 letter to Education Secretary Linda McMahon (PDF File), Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) say the agency has already spent roughly $216 million from the fund without explaining what it spent them money on. Meanwhile, the number of borrowers in default has climbed to a record high.The $216 million figure comes from the Department of Education’s own Fiscal Year 2027 budget request, which reports that amount obligated as of the start of FY2026 and projects that more than $450 million will still be unspent when FY2027 begins. The senators note that Section 82005 of the OBBBA requires the money to go toward “administrative costs” of the federal student loan program, including servicing, but built in no reporting or oversight requirement.