UC Irvine Cuts MBA Tuition to $99,000 to Slip Underneath New Federal Mortgage Cap

UC Irvine’s Paul Merage College of Enterprise is slicing tuition on its Flex MBA program by $30,000 and its Govt MBA by $48,000 beginning this fall — a discount of as much as 38%. 

The varsity is brazenly framing the transfer as a response to new federal graduate borrowing limits that take impact July 1, 2026. Nonetheless, this transfer raises extra questions than solutions.

Why it issues: On the new $99,000 price ticket, Merage’s Flex MBA squeaks in slightly below the $100,000 lifetime mixture cap on federal graduate borrowing established by the One Massive Lovely Invoice Act.

The varsity’s pitch: “College of California MBA is priced inside attain of presidency mortgage limits — making a world-class diploma not simply aspirational, however really attainable.” This is without doubt one of the first express examples of a enterprise college repricing a level across the new federal lending guidelines. 

The Numbers

• Flex MBA: down $30,000 to $99,000
• Govt MBA: down $48,000 to $119,000 
• Federal annual graduate mortgage restrict (efficient July 1, 2026): $20,500
• Federal lifetime graduate mortgage cap: $100,000

The irony, half one: If $99,000 is what the college now considers “accessible,” it raises a good query about what the prior sticker worth was truly based mostly on. Merage’s Flex MBA was priced at $129,000 earlier than this minimize. The varsity didn’t say what modified in its price construction to help a 23% worth drop — solely that the transfer expands entry. So it begs the query, was this all revenue earlier than?

The irony, half two: The $100,000 federal cap is essentially theoretical for MBA college students. Underneath the brand new guidelines, graduate college students can borrow solely $20,500 per 12 months. Most MBA packages run two years, which means a typical Flex MBA pupil can entry roughly $41,000 in federal loans throughout the diploma — far wanting the $99,000 worth. 

MBAs are categorised as graduate, not skilled, levels, and due to their shorter program size, they hit annual limits and by no means get to the total $100,000 restrict.

Actuality test: College students enrolling at Merage’s new worth will nonetheless face a roughly $58,000 funding hole that federal loans can not cowl. That hole has to return from financial savings, employer tuition help, scholarships, or non-public pupil loans — leaving college students in principally the identical place as earlier than.

What’s subsequent: Look ahead to different enterprise faculties (notably mid-tier and regional MBA packages that compete on worth) to comply with Merage’s lead and reset sticker costs across the $99,000 mark and even decrease. The faculties with essentially the most to lose are full-time MBA packages at $150,000-plus that can’t simply justify the hole as soon as federal financing dries up.

How this connects: The Faculty Investor has lined the brand new graduate mortgage limits intently. The Division of Schooling finalized the brand new $20,500 annual and $100,000 lifetime caps for graduate borrowing earlier this 12 months, and confirmed that Grad PLUS loans will depend towards the brand new lifetime cap.

Roughly one in 4 graduate debtors at present takes on greater than the brand new limits enable — about $8 billion in annual borrowing that may now should shift to non-public lenders or be priced out of existence. Our evaluation of how the graduate mortgage limits will reshape greater ed flagged precisely this sort of repricing as one doubtless consequence.

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