Forging Pathways: How Low-Income STEM Students Navigate College on a Free Tuition Program

In light of the ever-increasing cost of tuition, colleges and universities are turning to free tuition programs to make college more affordable – especially for those students demonstrating the most financial need. Concurrently, students from low-income backgrounds continue to enroll in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) majors, navigating rigorous fields of study and anticipating highly lucrative career opportunities following graduation. This project, therefore, sought to answer the following question: How and in what ways is the college-going navigation of low-income STEM students influenced by a free tuition pathway in a selective, affluent university? Utilizing a qualitative, symbolic interactionist methodology and interview and document analysis methods, we interviewed seven, first-year STEM students who self-reported that they received a free tuition scholarship. Study findings illuminate how hidden costs accumulate in the affluent university setting, even as participants narrated their institutions and majors as welcoming and supportive. This paper can equip higher education scholars and practitioners to better understand how low-income STEM students negotiate the barriers and possibilities present on campus, toward designing free tuition programs that more fully support the low-income student experience and outcomes.