The Detroit News
Dec. 5, 2024
Kim Kozlowski
The University of Michigan announced Thursday that it is expanding its free tuition program known as the Go Blue Guarantee by increasing the income threshold by 67% to qualifying students who come from families earning $125,000 or less.
Currently, the income threshold for the program is $75,000.
The expanded income level, which is scheduled to begin next fall, will qualify an additional 2,200 in-state undergraduate students who attend UM’s Ann Arbor, Dearborn and Flint campuses, President Santa Ono said during the board of regents’ last meeting of 2024.
The expansion of the Go Blue Guarantee will also mean that 10,000 students will have benefited from the Go Blue Guarantee since it began in 2018, the president said.
“This is a sizeable and transformative increase,” said Ono. “We are so looking for the opportunities so students and families across the state, outstanding individuals, will find a University of Michigan education is within their grasp.”
“It will support an inclusive and equitable environment at each of our campuses.”
UM’s announcement came hours after UM Provost Laurie McCauley announced that the university will no longer use diversity statements in faculty hiring, promotion and tenure, and scores of students protested outside concerned that the university will dismantle its diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.
When UM began the Go Blue Guarantee six years ago, free tuition for up to four years on the Ann Arbor campus was offered to students who came from families with annual incomes of $65,000 or less. The program was expanded to students on the Dearborn and Flint campuses in 2021.
In 2023, the regents increased the income threshold to qualify students from families earning $75,000 or less a year.
The new expansion nearly doubles the initial threshold of the Go Blue Guarantee, board Vice Chair Mark Bernstein said.
“It’s an extraordinary commitment to the future of the state,” Bernstein said.