This Week in College Admissions: Four Shifts Every College-Bound Family Should Know (June 1, 2026)

Every Monday morning, the inbox tells me the same thing: families want to know what just changed and what it means for their student. This week the answer is a lot. Four real shifts, all relevant to anyone planning for college right now, and none of them are reasons to panic. They are, however, reasons to plan.

Let’s walk through them together.

On May 27, Yale’s undergraduate admissions office announced that beginning with the 2026–27 cycle, all first-year and transfer applicants will be required to submit an SAT or ACT score. The test-flexible window that opened in 2024 — the one that let students substitute AP or IB results — is closed. The recommendation came from the Presidential Council on Yale College Admissions, formed in 2025 to review admissions policy.

Yale joins a list that now includes Dartmouth, Brown, Harvard, Caltech, MIT, and UT Austin. Stanford, Penn, Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Carnegie Mellon, and Miami are on their own multi-year phase-ins. At the most selective tier, “test-optional” is no longer the default; it’s the exception.

“Test-optional” at the top is no longer the default. It’s the exception.

On May 19, Maryland led 25 attorneys general and the District of Columbia in suing the Department of Education over a final rule implementing the new $100,000 cap on federal graduate borrowing. The higher $200,000 “professional degree” tier — the one that lets students borrow more for the most expensive training — is reserved for 11 specific fields, including medicine, dentistry, law, pharmacy, and veterinary medicine. Nursing, physician assistant, and physical therapy were left off the list.

The states argue that the rule narrows the law in ways Congress didn’t authorize, and that excluding clinical health professions will damage the country’s health-care pipeline. The caps are scheduled to take effect July 1, and the lawsuit asks a federal judge in Baltimore to vacate the rule.

The Department of Education published the final rule for the Workforce Pell Grant program on May 19. Starting July 1, Pell-eligible students will be able to use grant dollars for short-term workforce training programs lasting 8 to 15 weeks, as long as the programs are pre-approved at both the state and federal level. Programs also have to demonstrate value over time — tuition is capped based on what graduates actually earn after completing the program.

This is real news. For the first time, federal Pell funds will support certificate and credential programs that lead directly to employment in high-skill, high-wage fields like healthcare support, IT, advanced manufacturing, and the skilled trades.

A four-year degree isn’t the only federally funded path anymore. For some students, it shouldn’t be.

The Department of Education reported on May 13 that 54.7% of the Class of 2026 had completed the FAFSA as of May 1 — the highest completion rate on record, and roughly 12% ahead of where the Class of 2023 stood at the same point. The Department credits the September FAFSA launch, smoother processing, and nine state-level completion mandates. The Pell maximum holds at $7,395 for 2026–27, but new asset and outside-scholarship rules will push some borderline families out of Pell eligibility.

Meanwhile, on the price side: WashU is up 4.5% to $71,310, Penn is up 3.9% to $65,670, Swarthmore is up 5.75% to $72,722, Wellesley’s comprehensive fee will reach $96,136, and Davidson is up 6.5% to $73,090. Sticker prices are climbing. Net price is the number that actually matters — and the families who run a net-price calculator early are the ones who shop with leverage instead of shock.

— Chris Parsons, College Planning Center