Dive Summary:
- The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art announced it would start charging students tuition for the first time in over a century.
- Starting in Fall 2014, those able to pay will be charged $20,000 while others will be charged on a sliding scale.
- The school plans to maintain its need-blind admissions policy as it seeks to continue providing an education to those who cannot afford it.
From the article:
"... The absence of a tuition bill and the high quality of its instruction have over time changed the school’s identity; today it is one of the most selective colleges in the country, enrolling art, architecture and engineering students from every location and every station of life. But a budget crisis lately forced the college to wrestle with changes that would once have been inconceivable.
According to Cooper Union’s president, Jamshed Bharucha, it currently operates at a $12 million annual deficit. That number reflects several factors: expenses that have risen faster than revenues, a growing administration, disappointing fund-raising drives and most significantly $10 million a year in payments on a $175 million loan the school took out a few years ago, in part so that it could invest money in the stock market. In 2018, an adjustment in revenues from the college’s biggest asset, the land under the Chrysler Building, will overtake expenses, but only for a short while, he has said. ..."
