President Joe Biden did not sign legislation making four years of college free for families making less than $125,000 a year and the legislation he advocated would not have covered all students as initially promised in 2020.

Biden's signature legislation targeting higher education costs, the 2021 American Families Plan, aimed to lower college costs but would not have swept as wide as Biden's promise. The bill would have made community college tuition-free for students at any income level. It also called for two years of subsidized tuition for families earning less than $125,000 that had students enrolled in colleges and universities historically serving minority populations, including Blacks and Indigenous tribes.

But the bill would not have made four years of college tuition free for all families earning less than $125,000 a year. 

The American Families Plan lacked support in Congress and neither chamber passed it. 

Biden advocated for subsidies for students at historically Black colleges and universities in his annual budgets for fiscal years 2024 and 2025, but the plan did not make it into law. The White House budget proposals are statements of priorities, and Congress makes final decisions on the federal budget.

Biden's administration devoted more than $17 billion to historically Black colleges and universities for research grants and tuition support, the White House said in September. 

Because Biden never signed a law allowing students from families earning less than $125,000 to attend college for free, we rate this Promise Broken. 

President Joe Biden's hope of making public colleges and universities tuition free for families earning less than $125,000 is languishing.

Biden included several higher-education provisions in the American Families Plan he released in April, including a proposed $109 billion to ensure that "first-time students and workers wanting to reskill can enroll in a community college to earn a degree or credential for free."

As the American Families Plan morphed into a legislative vehicle known as the Build Back Better bill, however, the community college provision was removed in an effort to limit the package's price tag, which was seen as an obstacle to passage in both chambers.

But the tuition-free colleges proposal didn't even make it that far. It wasn't included in either the American Families Plan or in the Build Back Better bill. So we rate the promise Stalled.