Clarence Cross was in high school when D.C. launched its tuition assistance grant program in 1999. By the time the program’s dollar value increased one cent, he was an educator himself.
The program, D.C. Tuition Assistance Grant (DCTAG), gives thousands of the District’s high school students money to help pay for out-of-state tuition at public universities, since D.C. has only one — the University of the District of Columbia, ranked 145th among northern region universities by U.S. News and World Report.
“It really just provides a lot of access for our students, especially first-generation, low-income students,” Cross, an associate director at Friendship Public Charter School in Northwest D.C., told NOTUS.
When the congressionally funded program was introduced, its annual award, capped at $10,000, largely covered the gap between in- and out-of-state tuition rates at regional public colleges. At the time, tuition at the University of Maryland’s flagship campus cost $6,888 more for out-of-state students, and George Mason University cost $8,760 more.
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But costs have exploded since then, and D.C. has the highest average student loan debt in the country at $54,561, according to 2026 data from the Education Data Initiative. Today, Maryland’s out-of-state tuition costs $31,252 more per year than in-state. At George Mason, the difference is $24,996. That’s before additional costs like housing and food.
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To catch up, this February DCTAG saw its first-ever increase, from a maximum of $10,000 to $15,000 a year, with its lifetime cap raised to $75,000 instead of $50,000.
“The latest projections show that the average award amount will increase from approximately $7,700 a year to $12,500 a year,” a spokesperson for D.C.’s Office of the State Superintendent of Education, which administers DCTAG, told NOTUS in a statement.
Educators say it’s a meaningful increase.
“For some of our kids, [it] was really exactly what they needed to make sure that they could go to college with no significant bill or tuition or having to take out loans. For [others], it has closed the gap pretty significantly,” Mashea Ashton, the founder and CEO of local charter school Digital Pioneers Academy, told NOTUS.
But even at $15,000 a year, the program doesn’t close that gap entirely.
Those rates are eye-popping, but the sticker price can often be reduced for low- and middle-income students, said Preston Magouirk, a senior executive at local scholarship program DC CAP. The nonprofit gives selected D.C. high schoolers thousands of dollars annually to attend college, with a dedicated program for students in Wards 7 and 8.
“There are some people that can pay those high premiums, but for the vast majority of students, that’s not what’s asked,” Magouirk told NOTUS.
For those middle- and low-income students, DCTAG is one tile in a mosaic of aid they rely on for assistance, one that can include Pell Grants, additional scholarships like those offered by DC CAP or a school’s own financial aid packages, Magouirk said. Or, they take out loans.
“If their families are in a position to be able to take out loans, then their families do, and it is definitely a huge financial burden for both the family and the kid,” Ashton said. “[Some] decide to just go to work, or stay local and go to the University of the District of Columbia with the goal that after a year, they’ll be able to either save more money or get more scholarships so that they can transfer to their dream college or university.”
It would take federal action to expand the program further, the superintendent office spokesperson told NOTUS. That’s what happened this past year.
Ashton suggested increasing tuition assistance not just for D.C. students who want to attend public universities, but also for those who want to attend private, higher-cost, historically Black colleges and universities. And Eric Waldo, the CEO of the DC CAP scholarship program, proposed tying DCTAG increases to the cost of inflation.
“There should be something so [it’s not] every 25 years that we get an increase,” Waldo told NOTUS. “We could get our arms around this problem. Last year, 4,100 students graduated from D.C. schools. That’s a small group. Only about 840 or so are economically disadvantaged who are going to college. We should be able to serve all of them.”
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