Excelsior Scholarship

As reported in yesterday's Buffalo News, the Excelsior Scholarship is approved to take effect in Fall 2017. This new program offers free SUNY tuition to students with family incomes up to $100,000 (increasing to $125,000 in two years). Scholarship recipients would be required to maintain satisfactory grades, graduate on time, and commit to working in NYS for up to four years after graduation.

While this program is a great opportunity for many students, the article points out two major drawbacks: it is going to be detrimental to private colleges, and costly to taxpayers. The News estimates the first year cost to be $160,000,000, with annual increases in both tuition and the number of students eligible.

To reduce the impact on private colleges, the state is increasing TAP aid for eligible students.

To balance both sides of the issue, here is a link to both the NYS government announcement: https://www.ny.gov/programs/tuition-free-degree-program-excelsior-scholarship

and to a critical analysis of it by the New York Times: https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/04/14/opinion/the-cuomo-college-fiasco.html