251. New York's Free Tuition Promise Falling Short
- Author
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Center for an Urban Future, Dvorkin, Eli, and Viney, Brody
- Abstract
Faced with major economic disruption, New Yorkers are likely to turn to higher education. But while the Excelsior Scholarship program is growing, City University of New York (CUNY) students and community college students statewide continue to be underserved. Despite its well-intentioned purpose, New York State's flagship free tuition program--the Excelsior Scholarship--is still serving just a tiny fraction of the state's lower-income students, limiting the effectiveness of this highly touted initiative. This first-ever analysis of data from the first two years of the program--2017 and 2018--finds that strikingly few students at CUNY and at community colleges across the state are receiving the scholarship. The Center for an Urban Future first analyzed awards from the Excelsior Scholarship's inaugural year in August 2018. This new report provides the first look at awards from both the first and second year of the program and finds that the results remain cause for concern. The analysis finds that CUNY community college students remain particularly underserved by the program. A total of only 335 scholarships, amounting to less than $1.3 million, were awarded to students across CUNY's seven community college campuses in 2018--just 1 percent of the total funding awarded that year. Just nine students at Hostos Community College and ten students at Bronx Community College received awards in 2018, the lowest numbers of any colleges in the state.
- Published
- 2020