Representing a historic financial aid commitment, Pathways to Notre Dame includes two significant initiatives: a new no-loan policy for undergraduate students, ensuring middle- and low-income families who are admitted will be able to afford attendance, and an expansion of its need-blind policy — an institutional commitment to not consider a student’s financial circumstances when deciding whether to admit them — to include both domestic and international students. Notre Dame is now one of only nine highly selective colleges and universities that have a need-blind admissions policy for all students.

Effective immediately, Notre Dame will not consider the financial situation of students or their families, domestic or international, in the application for admission. Student loans will not be a component of the financial aid offer for full-time first-year and transfer undergraduate students entering fall 2025; instead, that need will be met with gift aid. While Notre Dame will not include loans in financial aid packages, families may still elect to take out federal student or private loans.