Cooper Union Plans To Reinstate Free Tuition

EAST VILLAGE, NY — Cooper Union announced a plan on Thursday to reinstate free tuition, returning the school to its century-old tradition of offering undergrads a college education free of charge.

The school's board of trustees voted late on Wednesday night to approve a plan that would return the school to its tuition-free roots within 10 years, Cooper Union officials said. The school first opened in the East Village in 1859, and provided all of its admitted undergraduate students with full-tuition scholarships until a crippling budget deficit moved the school to instate tuition on a sliding scale in 2014. The decision devastated many students and alumni and led to an outpouring of protest.

Mike Essl, an alum of the school and vocal opponent of Cooper Union's decision to charge tuition, applauded the 10-year timeline.

"I am amazed at the plan. I think 10 years is a miracle," Essl said in a statement. "At the cabinet meeting I was in where the timeline was revealed, I started weeping. We went through major upheaval [five years ago] and had to evaluate all we did and ask who we are if we aren’t free. The feeling I get now is just optimism and hope."

The school said in a statement that it would begin increasing undergraduate scholarships within two years, and that the new revenue would be generated for the school via cost cutting, fundraising and other unspecified revenue increases. The plan calls for the school to generate $250 million during the next 10 years. Cooper Union's Laura Sparks said the plan could be slowed or accelerated depending on whether the school meets "ambitious" financial targets in the next decade.

The school's decision to begin charging tuition several years ago was so unpopular that it prompted a lawsuit from the Committee to Save Cooper Union, a coalition former in opposition. New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman intervened to help the two parties reach a settlement that called for the school's then-president Jamshed Bharucha to leave the school and a financial monitor to review the school's money. Since then, the board has been investigating options to return to a full-tuition scholarship model.

When the East Village school returns to its tuition-free model, it will rejoin a small group of about a dozen schools in the U.S. that don't charge undergraduate tuition.

About 900 undergraduate and graduate students attend Cooper Union. This academic year, tuition cost $43,250. Scholarships have helped students cover about 76 percent of tuition since it was instated, the school said.

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