By Elyse Kuhn
Staff Writer
A recent development in New York State, called the Excelsior Scholarship, will make state schools free to attend for residents of the state. This is completely unfair for many reasons, as any college that is funded by the state of New York will now have free education for most people living in the state.
This, of course, does come with some restrictions, the first being that the amount of money that your family brings in every year must be under $100,000 (this is expected to go up to $125,000 in three years) to qualify for free education. The median household income in New York State is just under $61,000 in 2016. This would mean that most people living in the state will qualify for this “Excelsior Scholarship.”
Family income is not the only requirement to receive free tuition to a SUNY school—there are numerous others. There is a responsibility to cover all costs outside of tuition, including room and board and meal plans. The only part that gets paid for under this scholarship is the tuition to attend the school.
To receive this scholarship, the student must attend the school as a full-time student and average 30 credits a year. In addition to that, the student must maintain a certain GPA that the state deems to be “successful” to keep the scholarship. The student is also not allowed to be an employee of the state during the period they are attending college and receiving the Excelsior Scholarship.
After graduation, any student who received the Excelsior Scholarship must remain in the state for the same number of years that they attended the college. This means that if one goes for a four-year degree and receives this scholarship, one must plan on his/her first job being in state for at least four years. If the student leaves the state, he/she are required to pay the tuition he/she had received for free.
I know that because of the free tuition, going to a SUNY school is pretty alluring. A lot of people I have spoken to are already considering switching over to a SUNY school from their private institution, but truthfully it doesn’t seem to be worth it.
Even in the future, if I were to consider switching to a SUNY school, I would still be consistently reminded of how unfair this is. Many people do qualify for this program, but a lot of people are already enrolled in private schools.
For people that are currently enrolled in private schools, we work on paying off student loans for so many years after we get our degrees. We work tirelessly at school and many of us are in the same boat as those going to SUNY schools, where we may not have a lot of money. But we still have to pay off our student loans for years in the future.
If in the future I am an employer and I have two applicants, one of which came from a state school they went to for free, and someone from a private institution that they had to work to pay for, I am so much more likely to choose the person from the private college. Private college graduates are very possibly going to be taken much more seriously than those from a SUNY school.
Some people may transfer out of their private colleges in order to take advantage of this scholarship. This hurts these private colleges though, and enrollment may continue to go down due to this program. This could eventually cause tuition for schools like Bonaventure to go up if enrollment rates go down.
Free tuition at SUNY schools sounds like it would be beneficial, but to me it doesn’t seem to be. With all these requirements and restrictions, it seems to not be worth it to go to a state school simply because it is nearly free.
