Thanks to a grant from the Commonwealth of Virginia, tuition became free for all Virginians in the year 1875. During this period, the University of Virginia remained unique in that it had no president and mandated no core curriculum from its students, who often studied in and took degrees from more than one school. However, the university was also experiencing growing pains. As the original Rotunda caught fire and was gutted in 1895, there would soon be sweeping changes, much greater than merely reconstructing the Rotunda in 1899.