New York students and parents rejoiced during the second week of April when New York’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, said the state would be the first in the nation to offer free tuition for residents at two-year and four-year New York state schools. The bill was first introduced by Cuomo in January with hopes of implementing the legislation over the next few years. This bill will allow residents of New York who meet a certain income requirement to go to school for free under the Excelsior scholarship.
Starting in the Fall semester of 2017 students will be eligible for the scholarship if their parents make no more than $100,000 dollars a year. The income cap will be raised each year with it becoming $125,000 dollars a year by 2019. The first write up of the bill said that students must take 30 credits in the year in order to receive free tuition, but lawmakers felt this excluded part-time students. Now the final bill will include a more flexible plan for students. But something that was not included in the initial bill is the statute that students who use this bill must stay in New York for the amount of years they use this scholarship. So if a student uses the free tuition for all four years, they will have to stay in the state of New York for four more years after graduation. If students fail to stay in the state for those years, their scholarship will be converted into a loan they must pay back.
A few other guidelines of this bill are that you must be an undergraduate student, although your age doesn’t matter. You must maintain a GPA that is acceptable for the school and be on track for graduation, which means no slacking. While the bill will cover tuition, students must be responsible for room and board, which can account for upwards of $15,000 a year.
Tuition for those already in enrolled in these New York state schools will see a possible rise of $200 a year over the next three years. But there is also help for those who have already graduated with New York’s “Get on Your Feet” program which helps those who graduated from any college in New York since December 2014 by providing payment of federal student loan bills if this residents are making less than $50,000 a year.
So after reading all of this, do you still think this a good move for New York and the higher education system? I’m split down the middle on this matter. I think it’s great that New York is so progressive in trying to aid students of lower to middle class families by providing this scholarship. But I feel it’s somewhat extreme to keep the students there for four years after they graduate. This push to keep students in New York upon graduation came from the Republican party who questioned why New Yorkers should pay for a student’s tuition only to have them up and move to another state. I understand this to a certain extent but it’s also extremely limiting to these students. It seems like nothing comes without a price.
If I were to go to a New York school and have my tuition paid for, I would have no problem staying in New York if I got a job after school but if a better opportunity presented itself in my second year working in New York, I don’t think it’s fair to have to turn that down all because I was trying to be financially savvy with my college career. I think that there needs to be a more lenient system for this specific reason. Republicans stated that this bill was also put into place to grow business and new jobs but that’s where this can become a problem. If 10,000 students graduate from SUNY and CUNY and used this bill, this just saturates the job market and it becomes even more competitive than it is now. And for those graduating with specific degrees it could take years to find a job in New York. I think as the years go by with this new bill, the government will see that holding these students here for another four years will not benefit the state.
While I think this is a great step towards the United States becoming progressive and understanding the struggles of student debt, I think there should have been more thought on the repercussions this bill has by confining students to just New York. As a senior who will be graduating in a few weeks, I see the pros and cons of this legislation. I would love to graduate debt free and not have that heavy burden to bear. Because of student debt millennials are starting life later. They are waiting to buy a house, get insurance, even waiting to get married because of the major expense that comes along with an education. But I would not like the fact that I have to stay in Pennsylvania for the next four years because ideally I would like to leave after two years.
I think this bill will really help those who desperately need it and offer a more affordable solution to those looking for some financial help. As long as each student knows the fine print and accepts it willingly, then this bill will prosper. But as the saying goes, all that glitters is not gold.
