Kamehameha Schools eyes tuition-free education starting with 2026-27 academic year

Kamehameha Schools plans to no longer charge tuition beginning as of the 2026-27 academic year.

The announcement was made via a message from Kamehameha Schools Board of Trustees and Chief Executive Officer Livingston Wong.

Tuition for the 2025-26 school year is:

• Between more than $2,800 for modified days and more than $4,000 for full-day preschool.
• Nearly $5,700 for keiki in grades K-5 at the Hawaiʻi, Kapālama and Maui campuses.
• Nearly $7,000 for students in grades 6-12 at the three campuses.
• More than $12,000 to attend boarding school.

The private school encompasses three K-12 campuses, including Kamehameha Schools Hawaiʻi on the Big Island, and 30 preschools that focus on Hawaiian culture-based education.

It educates a total of about 5,400 students throughout all grades and has an endowment of about $15 billion.

The full cost of education for every student would be borne by the endowment beginning next school year, the message from trustees and Wong notes.

The change to tuition-free is pending Probate Court approval.

“This is not a change in Ke Ali‘i Pauahi’s generosity. Her trust has always carried the primary responsibility to provide the resources needed for a Kamehameha Schools education,” trustees and Wong said in the message. “This is a clarification of this special relationship.”

Kamehameha Schools already subsidizes about 92% of the cost of educating its students, with almost 80% of students also being awarded some kind of financial aid based on need.

The school was established in 1884 — in the will of Bernice Pauahi Bishop, great-granddaughter of Kamehameha I and last royal descendant in the Kamehameha line — to educate Native Hawaiians.

Kamehameha Schools Hawaiʻi first opened in 1996 as a temporary campus in the Keaukaha community of Hilo, continuing Pauahi’s legacy and extending educational opportunities to students on Hawai‘i Island.

The school officially opened its permanent present site Sept. 7, 2001, outside Kea‘au.

It is located 8 miles south of Hilo on 312 acres of remote, heavily forested land. The facilities are comprised of 25 buildings, including a stadium, two learning centers, an Olympic-sized pool and three athletic structures.

“With a deeper understanding of Ke Aliʻi Pauahi’s intent, E Ola! and aliʻi-lāhui relationships, it has become clear that tuition no longer reflects either the reality or the values of a Kamehameha Schools education,” according to the message from trustees and Wong. “Tuition suggests a transactional exchange. Yet, responsibility at Kamehameha has never flowed from payment. It flows from aloha, ancestral connection and preparation.”

Kamehameha Schools is also the subject of an open lawsuit filed in October by Virginia-based Students for Fair Admissions, which thinks “racial and ethnic classifications and preferences in admissions are unfair, unnecessary and unconstitutional.”

Multiple groups stand in solidarity with the school — including the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Democratic National Committee and ACLU of Hawaiʻi — reaffirming the political status and inherent sovereignty of the Native Hawaiian people.