UATX will never charge tuition. And we will never take government money.
Here’s why.
Graduates spend decades shouldering debt for hollow credentials. This debt influences every decision they make: What job to take. Where to live. When to marry. When to have children. Some will never start that company. Never take that risk. Never build what they were meant to build.
Meanwhile, universities take billions of subsidies from Washington while hoarding billions in endowments. And every year, they raise tuition.
Universities get richer. Students get poorer. America gets weaker.
Every breakthrough — every invention, every industry, every new frontier — began with a handful of extraordinary individuals free to take extraordinary risks. Washington led men into battle at 22. Carnegie was building his steel empire by 30. Meriwether Lewis charted the American West in his twenties. Sam Colt patented the revolver at 22. Palmer Luckey sold Oculus at 21. Patrick Collison founded Stripe at 22. Michael Dell began his computer business at 19. Fred Smith launched FedEx at 29. None of them spent his twenties paying off student loans.
Thanks to a $100 million gift from Jeff Yass — the largest donation since UATX was founded in 2021 — we’re breaking the chains. His gift marks the launch of a $300 million campaign to build a university that sets students free.
Our bet: Create graduates so exceptional they’ll pay it forward when they succeed, financing the tuition of the next generation. When our students build important companies, defend our nation, advance scientific frontiers, build families, and create works that elicit awe, they’ll remember who made their excellence possible. And they’ll give back.
Other Americans will take notice. Those who believe in unleashing American talent will invest in creating more of it.
Every other college gets paid whether students succeed or fail. At UATX, if our graduates don’t become essential to American excellence — and if their work doesn’t inspire others to fund this mission — we’re done.
Every dollar raised, every professor hired, every course taught must produce extraordinary graduates — or we fail. We’ve designed our own constraints: no room for bloated bureaucracies, no frivolous departments, no administrative empire-building. Our survival depends on one thing only: graduating leaders free to pursue American greatness.
The University of Austin rejects the credentialing cartel. We admit purely on test scores, rank every student, and fail those who can’t cut it. The nation’s brightest are coming to Austin — transferring from Carnegie Mellon, turning down UChicago, leaving Columbia — to wrestle with great books, master AI and data science, and start real companies on campus. They’re choosing a university dedicated to excellence instead of collecting hollow credentials elsewhere.
Jeff Yass has shown us what betting on America’s future looks like. Now we invite you to join him.
Learn more about supporting us or contact us at donate@uaustin.org.
I understand and appreciate the comments saying this is a bad idea. They may be right.
It may just be that I’m going through a difficult time personally as my employer is closing its doors after more than a hundred years in business, causing hundreds to lose their jobs…but this announcement brought a tear to my eyes.
We hear people say a lot that we need to rethink this, reimagine that, but the vast majority of the time those people don’t actually propose a viable alternative to the thing we’re to rework.
This is a plan. Time will tell if it’ll succeed or fail, but it’s an alternative worth exploring.
And as such, it gave me a sliver of hope for the world at a time when I find it hard to be optimistic.
Go UATX!
While the donation should be celebrated as it liberates the university from debt concerns, the answer is never 'free tuition' in my opinion. The first lesson for a university student should be that of economics, of having skin in the game. Sure, the exceptional students will achieve greatness no matter what, however it's the kids on the margins that you're trying to impact.
I think it's wonderful that the university has this funding, without question it's a wonderful gift. However, it's a monumental mistake, in my opinion, to not have some level of tuition for students to appreciate the real value of their education.