The Application with Allison Turcio

Ep. 95: The Roosevelt Pledge: How a Free Tuition Promise Drives Enrollment and Revenue

Episode Summary

What if affordability isn’t just a financial aid strategy, but a positioning strategy? In this episode, we sit down with Nicole Barron, Senior VP of Enrollment Management at Roosevelt University, to unpack the Roosevelt Pledge, a program guaranteeing free tuition for qualifying students. What started as a tuition reset became a clear, compelling promise that now drives nearly 40% of their application pool. Nicole shares how Roosevelt turned complexity into clarity, using financial aid modeling, competitive data, and thoughtful marketing to increase enrollment, improve retention, and grow net tuition revenue all at once.

Episode Notes

What if affordability isn’t just a financial aid strategy, but a positioning strategy? In this episode, we sit down with Nicole Barron, Senior VP of Enrollment Management at Roosevelt University, to unpack the Roosevelt Pledge, a program guaranteeing free tuition for qualifying students. What started as a tuition reset became a clear, compelling promise that now drives nearly 40% of their application pool. Nicole shares how Roosevelt turned complexity into clarity, using financial aid modeling, competitive data, and thoughtful marketing to increase enrollment, improve retention, and grow net tuition revenue all at once.

Join us as we discuss: 

Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:

To hear this interview and many more like it, subscribe on 

Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website, or search for “The Application with Allison Turcio” in your favorite podcast player.