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Temple University announced Thursday that it will cover tuition and fees for incoming full-time students from Philadelphia whose family income is $65,000 or less.
The Temple Promise program will take effect for this fall’s incoming class. To be eligible, students must be legal residents of Philadelphia County and be working toward their first bachelor’s degree at Temple. President Richard Englert said in a statement that the initiative will be “transformational for both the university and the city.”
The announcement follows on the heels of an ambitious reorganization and affordability plan put forth by Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro, which would cap tuition for low- and middle-income students at Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education campuses at $1,000 a semester, a massive discount from the usual $7,000 or more.
Temple—a public, “state-related” university like Penn State and the University of Pittsburgh—operates independently of PASSHE and thus is not included in Shapiro’s plan. But in the press release, the university said it hoped to “reinforce” the plan through its Promise program.
Pennsylvania public colleges have struggled to remain affordable in recent years, as funding from the state Legislature continues to fall far below the national average and competition for a dwindling pool of applicants dries up tuition revenue.
