New York is all set to offer free tuition at four year public universities. Most of our readers will likely not be surprised as this was a talking point during the presidential election campaign last year. The democratic governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, had also unveiled the plan earlier this year.
What is it? It is a plan that will give free tuition to residents accepted to a State University of New York or a City University of New York Campus. The families of those who earn more than $125,000 are ineligible for this great opportunity. There are state programs in other places such as Tennessee and Chicago City Colleges, but they deal with two year colleges and not four year ones.
It would be prudent to wait and see what impact this proposal has. Andrew Cuomo has been actively tweeting about the benefits of this plan and one look at his twitter makes it clear that, prima facie, there are a number of upsides to this plan. However, cynics could argue that New York already has plenty of affordable colleges and that this is mere eyewash with no intrinsic value.
Only time will tell how this project does but for now the middle class will breathe a collective sigh of relief.