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Free tuition for a lucky Terps football fan? Maryland explains the idea.
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- Free tuition for a lucky Terps football fan? Maryland explains the idea.
Maryland is getting creative in an attempt to draw — and keep — students at football games.
The Terps will give one student free tuition for the 2027 spring semester if they stay until the fourth quarter of Saturday's contest against Illinois, the team announced this week. The school is offering up to the undergraduate in-state tuition rate, worth $5,507, according to its website. Graduate and out-of-state students can still enter the raffle.
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Rachel Palmer, Maryland's assistant athletic director for fan development and event marketing, told The Baltimore Sun the idea had been in motion since August and finally got school approval this week.
"It's always hard to have students stay at entire games, and we want to encourage them as much as possible," Palmer said. "We know they have a million other things going on. Football games can be long, so what can we do to encourage them to stay?"
A QR code that students can scan to enter the raffle will be shown on the SECU Stadium video board during halftime. From there, organizers will randomly select five finalists, bring them down to the field, and announce them during the third quarter. One winner will be randomly chosen from that group and announced during the fourth quarter, with the other four finalists receiving a "small prize," Palmer said.
The timing is especially exciting for Palmer, who's worked in various roles in Maryland's marketing department since 2018 when she started as a post-grad intern. She knows students might be pulled elsewhere on Halloween.
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"Knowing that students have a lot of other priorities with this holiday, especially in college, and just wanting to make sure that the Maryland football game was going to be top of their priority list on Saturday," Palmer said.
Palmer praised second-year athletic director Jim Smith for his interest in revamping Maryland's game day experience and how it helps Palmer's department. Additions this season, like more televisions and water refill stations throughout the stadium concourse, are "tiny in the scope of things," she said, "but really mean a lot to a fan."
Conversations to get the tuition giveaway promotion approved went through Matt Smale, Maryland athletics' chief financial officer, whom Smith hired in December 2025, among others. The Terps are also running a buy-one, get-two-tickets-free promotion for Saturday's game, which Palmer said aims to bring families to College Park before they go trick-or-treating.
"We've had a lot of new projects open up with Jim here," Palmer said.
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Maryland is averaging 42,264 fans across four home games this season, up from 40,765 across seven home games in 2025, but has one sellout this season compared to three last year.
Many college football teams nationwide face student attendance issues. This week, UCLA coach Bob Chesney lamented his school's student section, saying it "was slow to get in there, and then felt like they left a little bit early" for the Bruins' win over Michigan State.
Former Maryland coach Mike Locksley never publicly called out fans like that, usually thanking them for the support he did get, even as his program struggled.
Smith dismissed Locksley last week after the Terps' 12th consecutive Big Ten loss, which dropped them to 2-5 overall midway through Locksley's eighth season. Interim coach Aazaar Abdul-Rahim will lead Maryland against Illinois with what the school hopes will be a packed student section.
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That's where Palmer comes in this week with an idea she's had in the works for months and said she "cannot think of any specific example" at other schools.
"It is definitely not a unique problem to Maryland," she said regarding student attendance. "I have a lot of colleagues across the country that are doing the same thing, and it's fun to look at what other people are doing and say, 'Hey, could we bring that to Maryland, too?' It's definitely something that takes a lot of work and a lot of effort."
Have a news tip? Contact Taylor Lyons at tlyons@baltsun.com , 410-332-6200 and x.com/TaylorJLyons .
