Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan’s Tuition-Free School to Close in 2025
In 2016, Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan launched the Primary School in California’s Bay Area, aiming to provide tuition-free education for low-income families. The school, created through their philanthropy, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), was designed to offer an integrated approach combining education and healthcare for children “from birth through high school.” For Chan, a former pediatrician, it was a way to merge her two lifelong passions: health and education.
But this week, the school announced it would be closing its doors after the 2025-2026 school year, leaving many families in the community in shock. Describing the decision as “very difficult,” the school offered little explanation for the closure in a message sent to the hundreds of families it serves. The move comes amid broader changes within CZI and shifting priorities in the tech world.
Reports from the San Francisco Standard and The New York Times revealed that CZI was withdrawing its support for the school, prompting the closure. While a spokesperson for the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative confirmed the decision, they declined to provide further details about the reasons behind it. However, the CZI announced plans to donate $50 million to help support affected families and communities.
Carson Cook, the Primary School’s Senior Manager of Strategy and Advancement, confirmed that the school had begun informing parents about the closure. In an interview with CNN, he stressed that the school’s focus on supporting the entire family, including wellness coaching for parents, would continue through the school’s final year. However, Cook refrained from commenting on CZI’s internal decisions or the closure’s broader context.
When Zuckerberg and Chan founded the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative in 2015, they set out with ambitious goals, including personalized learning, curing diseases, and building stronger communities. Their investments covered education, health, immigration reform, and criminal justice issues, with the Primary School being one of their pioneering efforts.
Chan had previously written about the importance of addressing the “toxic stress” caused by poverty, abuse, and neglect, explaining that the Primary School had proven that children could thrive even in difficult circumstances. The school had become a model for integrating healthcare and education, with more than 95% of its students being from underrepresented minority groups.
But in February, CZI announced a shift in focus, pivoting away from social advocacy efforts, including racial equity and immigration reform. This move followed similar shifts at Meta, Zuckerberg’s social media company, which has increasingly aligned with political changes under President Trump.
The closure marks a significant change in a region already grappling with the consequences of Silicon Valley’s rapid growth. The influx of high-paying tech jobs has exacerbated the housing crisis, pricing out lower-income residents. For many families, the Primary School represented a rare opportunity in a neighborhood where affordable education and support services were hard to come by.
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One parent, quoted by the San Francisco Standard, expressed her frustration: “It was a gift to the community in the face of the housing crisis. Now they’re going to take this away too.”
As the school prepares to close, Cook emphasized that the remaining year would be a time to offer families the best possible experience. The wellness coaches, who worked with parents to provide holistic support, will help families explore other educational options for their children.
In the midst of this change, many are reflecting on the evolving role of tech giants like Meta in shaping their communities. What was once seen as a positive force for social change has become a reminder of the industry’s growing influence — and not always for the better.
As for the Primary School’s staff, Cook stated that they are committed to making the final year count. “Our team cares very deeply about our children, our families, and our community,” he said. “We want to give them the best year of school and programming we can.”
The closure of the Primary School is not just the end of a philanthropic experiment, but a symbol of the broader shifts happening in the world of tech philanthropy and the communities it affects.
Source: CNN – A tuition-free school created by Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan will shutter next year
