NAU to offer free tuition to Arizona residents with incomes under $65K

Undergraduate education at Northern Arizona University (NAU) has just become more accessible. Thursday, the university reported its new Access2Excellence (A2E) initiative, which will fully cover tuition for Arizona residents with household incomes at or below $65,000. Approximately 50% of Arizona households currently meet this financial threshold today.

“If you are an Arizona resident and live in a household where your family income is at or below $65,000 per year, which is the current median for the state, you have an opportunity to come to NAU – tuition-free,” NAU President José Luis Cruz Rivera said.

Per a press release from NAU, the university will continue to provide generous financial aid packages for students living in households with incomes above $65,000. By maintaining a cost of attendance that remains lower than other in-state options for all students, the university reports that every Arizonan has access to an affordable, high-quality education at NAU.

The A2E initiative takes effect in Fall 2023 for firstyear and transfer students who attend NAU in Flagstaff or at one of the university’s sites throughout Arizona. Yuma students in particular stand to benefit as Yuma is home to NAU’s only branch campus among its 20+ locations across the state of Arizona.

“What this program will do is make it clear to students aspiring to an education at NAU-Yuma is that even in the midst of writing college applications and filling financial aid forms today, education for them will be affordable,” Cruz Rivera said.

He explained that the initiative was made to better serve Arizona moving forward.

“We are in a very interesting point of time in the state’s history,” Cruz Rivera said. “The economy is booming, thousands of new, high-paying jobs are projected for the future, but what is less talked about is that seven out of 10 of those jobs will require a college degree. And Arizona is among the bottom states in college degree attainment.”

In Yuma County specifically, the numbers on attainment vary by level of education. Education Forward Arizona reported this year that 36% of Yuma County residents between the ages of 25-64 have completed a two- or four-year degree or have an active professional certificate or license. Considering only degrees, the Greater Yuma Economic Development Corp. reports that 23.38% of the county’s population in Yuma County have an Associate’s degree or higher. That number drops to 10.05% when considering Bachelor’s degrees.

To Yuma County and Arizona at large, Cruz Rivera wants to make it clear they’ll be able to afford an undergraduate degree and that the A2E initiative is just the beginning.

“This is one of the first building blocks under our new presidency that NAU is putting in place to ensure that it can be a nationally recognized model for expanding economic mobility and social impact,” he said.

According to NAU, the initiative also builds on other complementary efforts by the university to address the state’s attainment needs. In March, NAU launched a pilot program assuring admission for hard-working, qualified students who meet Arizona high school graduation requirements with a 3.0 GPA or higher. The program eliminated an access barrier for thousands of high-achieving Arizona high school students.

“NAU aims to be a leading university for access, success and equitable value,” Cruz Rivera said. “The Access2Excellence initiative is only one in a series of actions aimed at delivering on this mission and better serving all Arizonans. There is more to come, including reimaging our statewide footprint, expanding and updating our programmatic offerings and finalizing our Strategic Roadmap to help guide our actions well into the future.”