UC Irvine Paul Mraz School of Business website homepage.
UC Irvine’s Paul Meraz School of Business cutting tuition This drop saw its Flex MBA program increase by $30,000 and its Executive MBA by $48,000 – a decrease of up to 38%.
The school is openly citing the move as a response to new federal undergraduate borrowing limits that take effect July 1, 2026. However, the move raises more questions than answers.
why it matters: At the new $99,000 price tag, Meraz’s Flex MBA is just below the $100,000 lifetime aggregate limit on federal graduate lending established by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
School pitch: “The University of California MBA is priced within reach of government loan limits – making a world-class degree not only aspirational, but actually attainable.“This is the first clear example of a business school reevaluating a degree to conform to new federal lending rules.
Number
- Flex MBA: Down from $30,000 to $99,000
- Executive MBA: Down from $48,000 to $119,000
- Federal annual graduate loan limit (effective July 1, 2026): $20,500
- Federal Lifetime Graduate Loan Limit: $100,000
Irony, Part One: If $99,000 is what the school now considers “accessible,” it raises a fair question about what the previous sticker price was actually based on. Before this reduction, Merz’s Flex MBA was priced at $129,000. The school did not say what changed to its cost structure to support the 23% price drop — only that the move expands access. So the question arises, was it all profit first?
Irony, Part Two: The $100,000 federal limit is largely theoretical for MBA students. Under the new rules, graduate students can borrow only $20,500 per year. Most MBA programs last two years, which means a typical Flex MBA student can access about $41,000 in federal loans for the entire degree—a lot less than the $99,000 price tag.
MBAs are classified as graduate degrees, not professional, and due to the shorter length of their program, they tend to hit annual limits and may never reach the full $100,000 limit.
Reality Check: Students enrolling at Merage’s new price will still face a funding gap of about $58,000 that federal loans cannot cover. The difference will have to come from savings, employer tuition assistance, scholarships, or private student loans — leaving students in basically the same situation as before.
What will happen next: Keep an eye on other business schools (especially mid-tier and regional MBA programs that compete on price) to follow Mraz’s lead and reset sticker prices to around $99,000 or even lower. The schools hurting the most are those with $150,000-plus full-time MBA programs, which cannot easily justify the difference once federal funding ends.
How it connects: College Investor has closely covered the new graduate loan limits. The Department of Education finalized new $20,500 annual and $100,000 lifetime limits for graduate borrowing earlier this year, and confirmed that GradPlus loans will count toward the new lifetime limit.
Roughly one in four undergraduate borrowers currently borrows more than the new limit – about $8 billion in annual borrowing that will now have to be transferred to private lenders or priced out of existence. Our analysis of how higher graduate loan limits would shape the situation identifies this type of reevaluation as a possible outcome.
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