Preserve Free Tuition At Cooper Union
BRAD HOYLMAN
Charging tuition at The Cooper Union—a beacon of educational equality in Manhattan’s rapidly changing East Village, which I represent in the state Senate—is a betrayal of New York’s trust that not only jeopardizes the college’s reputation, but also its standing in our community. Unless a lawsuit brought by a coalition of students, alumni and faculty succeeds in preserving Peter Cooper’s mission of free tuition at this historic school—or the Attorney General intervenes—tuition bills will start arriving next month in the mailboxes of incoming students for the first time in the school’s 155-year history. That would be a shame.
In 1859, the New York State Legislature passed an "Act to Enable Peter Cooper to Found a Scientific Institution in the City of New York." That institution would go on to become one of the nation’s most elite, enduring and meritocratic colleges, founded on Peter Cooper’s guiding principle that education should be “free to all.” The Cooper Union dedicated itself to excellence in arts and sciences and opened its doors to the working class, women and people of color. Sustained by an endowment that includes the Chrysler Building, it has indeed been “free to all” since 1859, through the Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Great Depression and numerous recessions.
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