For museums, ‘cost of admission’ takes on many meanings.
There are entrance fees, of course. But there are other costs that are harder to see: wondering whether you belong; worrying about how your children will behave; not seeing people who look like you in the galleries; or simply never having learned the unwritten rules of a museum.
The Memorial Art Gallery is betting that removing one barrier will help visitors confront some of the others. Beginning in 2027, general admission to MAG will be free for everyone. The initiative — Free for All, Forever — rests on a simple proposition: cost should never stand between someone and cultural education.
The larger question is more complicated. What happens when a museum stops asking people to pay for permission to belong?
“I hope more people have a relationship with the museum,” said MAG director Sarah Jesse. “Museums have a reputation for being elitist; for not being welcoming to diverse populations. I did not want the MAG to serve a segment of the population.”
Jesse came to Rochester in 2023, after 23 years in the museum field, and arrived wanting to confront what she saw as a contradiction. MAG had been diversifying its collection and exhibitions and expanding public programming, yet a significant portion of the community still had to pay to walk through the door.
“This was the next step,” Jesse said. “We were touting these values without addressing this.”
Rochester’s economic divide made the question particularly urgent. Roughly 40% of children in the city live in poverty. For families already making difficult choices about housing, food, transportation and childcare, a $20 per person museum admission can be enough to make a visit feel out of reach.
When MAG opened in 1913, admission was free. It remained that way for more than five decades before the museum began charging admission fees in 1969.
Jesse said eliminating the fee is both a bold new experiment and a return to an older understanding of the museum’s public mission.
“I hope that cultural institutions take seriously the economic and practical barriers that prohibit diverse communities from participating,” she said. “Not just symbolic change, but material change.”
Over two years ago, Jesse began a public campaign, delivering the same presentation in 15 different places. The response was overwhelmingly supportive, but there was an obvious question: could the museum afford it?
Admission revenue represents less than 5% of MAG’s operating budget, and many of the museum’s major operating costs are relatively fixed. The only challenge was creating enough philanthropic support to replace that revenue and sustain free admission over time.
Removing the admission fee, Jesse said, could open the doors to substantially more visitors without eliminating a major source of the museum’s operating revenue.
Currently, MAG has raised more than $9 million toward the endowment that will make the initiative permanent. MAG also has a longstanding endowment, established in 1930. Its invested assets generate income that supports the institution while the principal is generally preserved. That, combined with a $3 million lead gift from Abby and Doug Bennett and the Sands Family Foundation last year, has helped make the museum’s commitment to free admission possible.
Doug Bennett, a MAG and University of Rochester trustee, sees the campaign as an exercise in civic leadership.
“I think it is about thinking how to build something for everyone,” he said, “really taking the dollar and cents out of it and looking at the leadership it takes to get other people behind the initiative.”
Bennett credited Jesse for building support within the MAG and, importantly, connecting that institutional support to the University of Rochester through president Sarah Mangelsdorf, whose backing helped strengthen the initiative across both institutions.
“Jesse planted this seed, she watered this seed, she got the administration behind it,” he said.
For Bennett, the argument ultimately comes down to what happens inside the museum. He remembers winters when he was simply looking for something to do with his children.
“We would often take them for a stroll around the MAG,” he said. “As they got older, they could pick their favorite piece, learn what they could touch and what they could not, and begin figuring out how to move through the galleries.”
A museum membership, for them, meant the family could stop in for a few minutes or stay for an hour.
“Why can’t everyone do that?” he said.
That may be the simplest argument for free admission. A museum can become part of ordinary life: somewhere to take children on a winter afternoon, spend an hour between activities or return to see a favorite painting.
Still, eliminating the admission fee does not eliminate every barrier.
“Some barriers are disguised and some are obvious,” says Rob Tortorella, president of MAG’s board of managers.
Particularly for people facing several obstacles at once: poverty, disability, transportation problems or simply a lack of familiarity with cultural institutions.
“Cost is not the only barrier,” Bennett said. “It is the obvious one to eliminate first. We want this to feel like a community resource. Everyone is welcome.”
That means the work continues beyond the ticket desk — programming, education, transportation and community events all have to reinforce the invitation.
Transportation offers a useful test, as many city residents do not own vehicles. For someone using a power wheelchair, getting on a bus and reaching a destination is not necessarily straightforward. Accessible routes, sidewalks, entrances and the physical environment all determine whether a place can be experienced.
Tortorella said transportation should be understood as part of cultural access, not simply as a way to get people to work or essential services.
“Why do we need art?” he said. “Art gives us a deeper understanding of our environment and brings a deeper understanding of ourselves.”
Through its partnership with the Rochester Public Library system, patrons at 28 of the system’s 32 branches can access MAG passes, but Jesse learned a pass does not necessarily create familiarity. Someone can have permission to enter and still feel like an outsider.
Jesse’s vision is for a museum people use without needing a special reason. Maybe they want to see a particular painting. Maybe they stop in during lunch. Maybe they bring a first date. Maybe they simply want somewhere quiet to sit. The difference between visiting a museum every decade and having the freedom to “check in” on an artwork like an old friend.
School of the Arts students, whose building is right across Prince Street, have already offered a glimpse of that possibility. When admission was waived for them, some began gathering in the pavilion during lunch and lingering, rather than treating the building as a place they were merely visiting.
Of course, free admission is not a magic formula.
When the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore eliminated admission in 2006, attendance initially jumped 45%, said former director Gary Vikan. But the surge did not translate into a corresponding increase in spending within the museum. After that initial bump, attendance eventually declined 18.6%. The lesson is not that free admission fails; but that simply opening the doors does not create a sustainable financial model or a lasting audience.
After the Dallas Museum of Art eliminated $10 general admission while continuing to charge for special exhibitions, annual attendance rose from 498,000 to 668,000. Free memberships grew to roughly 100,000. The museum also gained a clearer picture of who was coming through the doors.
“Now we know who they are,” then-director Maxwell Anderson told Fortune in 2015. “That data is worth a lot more.”
Free admission can bring people through the door, but the real test is what happens after they arrive. Do they return? Do they participate in programs? Do they begin to see the museum as part of their lives?
Those questions matter as museums navigate a difficult post-pandemic landscape. According to the American Alliance of Museums’ 2025 national survey of 511 museum directors, 29% reported declining attendance in 2025 amid weaker tourism and economic uncertainty.
Free admission will not solve disability access, poverty or the cultural perceptions that have kept some Rochester residents at a distance. But it removes one tangible barrier and creates the possibility of something harder to measure: familiarity.
“When you eliminate the barriers,” Jesse said, “people respond.”
George Cassidy Payne is a writer and journalist exploring art, culture, community and social justice in Western New York. He also works as a crisis counselor and community organizer.
