Whitman College is introducing a 10% tuition promise that caps students’ tuition burden at 10% of family earnings, starting with first-year and transfer students enrolling for fall 2027. The school is framing the move as a direct response to families’ growing debt exposure and the opacity of traditional pricing and aid calculations. The policy is designed to be automatically understandable: applicants use FAFSA as part of eligibility while the tuition cap is tied to parents’ adjusted gross income. Whitman says the promise expands over a three-year period to reach all future students. The development signals a broader affordability strategy among selective institutions—using transparent tuition caps to reduce uncertainty about the real cost of attendance. For administrators, the key operational shift is pricing discipline: guaranteeing tuition share limits can require careful financial planning and aid redesign to keep enrollment goals while controlling net tuition revenue volatility.