America’s middle class is getting squeezed by the soaring cost of attending elite colleges. And those schools — themselves pressured by attacks from the Trump administration over federal funding — are starting to get the message.

Harvard, MIT and the University of Pennsylvania have each in recent months expanded the range of students who qualify for free tuition to those from families earning up to $200,000. More Ivy League institutions and selective private colleges with robust endowments are expected to follow suit, as millions struggle to pay back student loans and schools grapple with growing backlash to how expensive it’s become to get a degree.

The new aid thresholds, which go into effect for the 2025-26 school year, are no coincidence. A Bloomberg analysis of financial aid data from 50 selective colleges shows that in many cases, middle-class families, defined by some metrics as making between $100,000 and $300,000, earn too much to qualify for meaningful aid but too little to afford college out of pocket.

Meadow was tapped to provide data for this deep-dive into college affordability.

Read the full Bloomberg article here.