After more than a century as a tuition-free college, Manhattan’s Cooper Union will begin charging undergraduate students close to $20,000 per year beginning in 2014, the school said yesterday.
The Board of Trustees of the legendary East Village college said it was forced to make the move in part because of stagnating income from its main asset — the land under the Chrysler building.
The members also cited disappointing fund-raising drives, an increase in administration and rising health-care costs, which they said were expected to climb by 7.5 percent each year.
“Under the new policy, The Cooper Union will continue to adhere to the vision of Peter Cooper, who founded the institution specifically to provide a quality education to those who might otherwise not be able to afford it,” they pledged.
To that end, most future students will be charged on a sliding scale, and the highest-need students will remain eligible for a free ride.
The trustees said admissions — the school serves nearly 1,000 undergraduates currently — would remain “need-blind.”
Technically, tuition at the esteemed arts, architecture and engineering college is $19,275 per semester this year, but all students are fully subsidized by the school.
That’s why the board termed the tuition change not as a boost — but as a reduction in the full-tuition scholarship, by 50 percent.
“Being mostly alumni ourselves, we share your sense of the loss of this extraordinary tradition,” the trustees said in a lengthy statement. “In the final analysis, however, we found no viable solutions that would enable us to maintain the excellence of our programs without an alteration of our scholarship policy.”
Current students and those entering the East Village school this fall will be allowed to graduate without any change to their scholarships.
Last year, the board announced that it would start charging tuition to students in its much smaller graduate programs — and also expand its masters degree offerings.
While The Cooper Union was founded in 1859, it didn’t start granting full rides until the early 1900s.