Why Colleges Are Offering Free Tuition

Colleges don't want to spend their huge endowments. To guard their coffers, they offer free tuition to a tiny percentage of applicants: families making less than $60,000 per year. It's not altruism. They have built their huge reserves by raising tuition every year, then taking all the state and federal loan and grant money and putting it in their private bank accounts. It's all about the Benjamins, as usual.

Boston Globe: Colleges guard soaring endowments
Many resist congressional pressure to curb tuition hikes, offer more aid

Under growing pressure from Congress, the country's wealthiest colleges and universities are sharply resisting calls to spend more of their soaring endowments to expand financial aid and curb tuition hikes that critics say are putting college beyond the reach of ordinary families.

The pattern of deep-pocketed universities regularly raising tuition while amassing fast-growing fortunes has drawn unusual scrutiny from government leaders and higher education advocates over the past few months. They say elite colleges are hoarding wealth that could help open their doors to more poor and working-class families.

In Massachusetts, 13 institutions boast endowments of more than $500 million. The Boston area's eight wealthiest schools hold a combined fortune approaching $50 billion.

Through lobbyists and national education associations, colleges are fighting a handful of proposals rippling through Congress. Among the most controversial ideas: a requirement that schools spend 5 percent of their endowments each year to help defray costs for students and families.

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...76 institutions surpass[] the $1 billion mark, up from 39 in 2003.

Nowhere are colleges amassing more wealth than in the Boston area. Harvard University's $34 billion endowment is bigger than the gross domestic product of Montana. MIT's $10 billion cache could buy Facebook. Together, Boston College and Boston University could bankroll the entire city budget, with $500 million to spare.