With free-tuition promises, some colleges try to untangle confusion over what they cost

MIDDLEBURY, Vt. — Stately buildings of Vermont limestone surround meticulously tended lawns at the edge of a New England village that looks like it’s the setting for a Hallmark Christmas movie. There’s a golf course on this campus. The student-faculty ratio is an exclusive 9-to-1. And an undergraduate tour guide is telling visiting prospective applicants about a classmate who spent a semester learning how to forage in Malaysia. Middlebury College looks and sounds … expensive. But like other universities and colleges, it’s working hard to persuade people that it’s not. Middlebury has announced that, starting next year, students from families with annual household incomes up to $175,000 can enroll tuition-free.

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