Press Releases

Today, Education and Workforce Committee Chairman Tim Walberg (R-MI) sent a letter to Government Accountability Office (GAO) Acting Comptroller General Orice Williams Brown requesting a review of how public universities determine tuition and fees for graduate programs.
 
The request comes as graduate student loans make up approximately half of the $1.7 trillion federal student loan portfolio. Meanwhile, tuition and fees vary widely across graduate programs, even within the same university, raising questions about how schools determine what students pay.
 
In the letter, Walberg writes: “Tuition and fees vary widely by graduate program, even within the same institution. For example, at one California public university, annual tuition and fees for the 2026–2027 academic year range from approximately $23,000 for certain non-professional graduate programs to $94,000 for a Master of Business Administration.”
 
The letter continues: “Given the varying costs to students by college and by program, the [Committee] seeks to better understand how institutions of higher education set their graduate program costs, particularly among public universities that receive both federal and state taxpayer funds.”
 
The letter concludes by requesting that GAO examine what factors public universities consider when setting graduate tuition, including operating costs, student demand, graduates' expected earnings, and access to federal student aid. The review will also examine differences between in-state and out-of-state tuition and whether graduate program revenue helps fund other university operations.
 
Read the full letter here.