New York’s Free-Tuition Program Will Help Traditional, but Not Typical, Students -<br />By DAVID W. CHENAPRIL 11, 2017<br />The program to provide free tuition for students at New York State’s public colleges and universities passed on Friday by the Legislature has been hailed as a breakthrough and a model for other states<br />that will change the lives of students at public colleges across the state.<br />The Excelsior Scholarship, as the program is called, is expected to cut the cost of a degree from a four-year State University of New York college — now almost $83,000 for tuition, fees<br />and room and board — by about $26,000 for an eligible family making $100,000 a year.<br />Tuition bills at the City University of New York or SUNY — already among the lowest in the country, with two-<br />and four-year tuition roughly ranging between $4,350 and $6,470 — are often covered by Federal Pell grants or state aid.<br />Mr. Cuomo is expected to sign Excelsior into law on Wednesday at LaGuardia Community College in Queens, part of the CUNY system, where he announced the<br />plan in January accompanied by Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who made free tuition at public colleges a cornerstone of his presidential campaign.<br />At an event Monday, Mr. Cuomo and his budget director, Robert Mujica, who is also on CUNY’s Board of Trustees, defended the requirement to live<br />and work in New York and other aspects of the scholarship, which is expected to cost $87 million in its first year, the 2017-18 school year, and $163 million by its third.
