The Texas A&M system board of regents approve new and increased fees at this month’s (February 5) meeting.
What the regents approved, does not involve undergraduate tuition and fees.
Before the regents unanimous vote, chairman Bob Albritton of Fort Worth said they had to be careful not to use fees in place of tuition charges. Albritton also said “As we go through these fees that we don’t raise the ire in Austin as far as them (state lawmakers) looking at ‘You told us you were going to do this (freeze tuition) but look at these fees you’re increasing.'”
Another regent with concerns, John Bellinger of San Antonio, said “eventually the governor’s gonna put a stop to this too. So we’ve got to manage it well (and) we’ve got to have an efficiency plan”.
Click below to hear comments from Bob Albritton and John Bellinger during the February 5, 2026 board of regents finance committee meeting.
This month’s regents actions included new and increased fees for A&M’s more than 100 field trip and study abroad programs. The most expensive is a new $25,000 dollar fee for each arts and science class taught in Australia, Morocco, and Taiwan, along with a $25,000 fee for new college of architecture classes in Spain.
The regents also approved at A&M, is a charge of $7,675 for each fall and spring semester in a new masters degree in sport business analytics. That’s the fee if you take classes in person. The fees for the same degree online is $555 dollars a semester.
Two weeks after the regents vote, the flagship campus sent news releases announcing more students whose families meet income guidelines can qualify for free tuition starting in the next academic year. And the flagship will continue holding undergraduate tuition and required fees at 2021 rates.
Information from Texas A&M about freezing undergraduate tuition and required fees and expanding the Aggie Assurance program on the College Station campus:
As college costs climb across the country, Texas A&M University is taking two major steps to keep an Aggie education within reach: the university has extended its freeze of undergraduate tuition and required fees through the 2026–27 academic year, and it will expand the Aggie Assurance program on the College Station campus beginning in fall 2026 so more families — including those with up to $100,000 in income and assets — can qualify for free tuition.
Since 2022, Texas A&M has held undergraduate tuition and required fees at 2021 rates, helping Texas A&M families save as much as $61 million over the past four years.
Approximately 80,000 undergraduate students have enrolled since 2021 without experiencing a tuition increase. May 2025 marked the first graduating class to complete its Texas A&M degree with no tuition or fee increase during the students’ time on campus, and the extension through 2026–27 means at least two additional graduating classes will share in those savings.
The Aggie Assurance program is Texas A&M’s free tuition program for eligible low- and middle-income Texas families. Beginning in fall 2026, the university will expand the program so that incoming undergraduates who are Texas residents and whose family income and assets are less than $100,000, and who meet the state priority deadline, can qualify for free tuition. First launched in 2008, Aggie Assurance was among the first programs of its kind in the nation and has expanded over time as Texas A&M deepened its commitment to access and affordability.