Archinect - News

The Cooper Union is starting to bring back free tuition

2024-09-03T17:02:00-04:00

In a surprising move, The Cooper Union has announced a return to tuition-free education for all undergraduate seniors within each of the next four years starting with its Class of 2025. The reversal comes ten years after school trustees formally voted to do away with its free mandate for the first time as a result of financial strain. The New York Times was first to report on the announcement, which follows a $6 million grant from three Cooper alumni.

The Cooper Union says it is on track to be free to all students by the 2028-29 academic year. Current costs for undergraduates hover at $44,550. However, the school is prioritizing the ten-year plan. Current first-, second-, and third-year students will receive full-tuition scholarships in their senior years under it. In a statement, outgoing President Laura Sparks said progress on the issue "[reaffirms] the ideals that have been foundational to this institution since Peter Cooper opened its doors in 1859."

Previously on Archinect: Coo...

The tuition to income ratio is very concerning for all, and terrifying for the Black community

2020-10-09T13:46:00-04:00

Cruz Garcia and Nathalie Frankowski of WAI Think Tank have released some very troubling new data as part of their ongoing work studying structural racism in architecture. Part of their research has tracked the cost of tuition, along with other related typical expenses with student living, with the median household income in a number of cities across the US.

In Manhattan, for example, the annual tuition at Columbia GSAPP, in the M.Arch program, costs over $61k, with additional related expenses adding up to nearly $100k. Meanwhile, the median white household income is around $86k and the median Black household income is only $28k.

Archinect Sessions #158: A Conversation with Nathalie Frankowski and Cruz Garcia of WAI Architecture Think Tank

The "Anti-Liberation Paywall", part of their larger Manual of Anti-Racist Architectural Pedagogy, describes this problem in detail, and discusses the role of academic institutions as instruments of settler-colonial legacies, displacing infrastruct...

Art students demand tuition refund due to "insufficient" online instruction

2020-04-15T13:26:00-04:00

As hundreds of universities across the US are forced to shift classes online and as arts studio programmes and workshops are compromised due to the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, students are mobilising to demand the full or partial reimbursement of their tuition. Few efforts, however, have yielded positive results, to the financial devastation of many students.

According to The Art Newspaper, a letter containing the signatures of more than 80% percent of Boston University MFA students was "rebuked by school representatives last month." The school says that it believes its Zoom meetings are commensurate with a "studio education." Additionally, students at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), Yale University's School of Art, RISD, and the New York University Tisch School of the Arts are all arguing for partial refunds for tuition, The Art Newspaper reports.

USC eliminates undergraduate tuition for families making less than $80,000 per year

2020-02-20T14:02:00-05:00

University of Southern California (USC) President Carol Folt has announced that the institution will eliminate tuition costs for students whose families make less than $80,000. In addition, the private university will no longer consider home equity when making financial aid calculations for students.

The changes, according to The Los Angeles Times, come as part of an effort to make the USC's tuition competitive with those offered by public universities, like the University of California system. In-state tuition for local rival University of California, Los Angeles runs at about $12,570 per year. The change applies only to undergraduate students and to those matriculating into the university directly from high school. According to reports, the university will continue to offer its existing financial aid packages for transfer and graduate students.

The change in policy mirrors recent efforts undertaken at other elite higher education institutions like Harvard University and Stanford...

Architecture apprenticeship model launching next month between UK schools and firms

2018-08-23T14:58:00-04:00

The first group of architectural apprentices will start at leading practices such as AHMM, Hawkins\Brown and PRP next month as a major new sector initiative gets underway. Practices AtelierWest, GPA (Get Planning and Architecture), Ingleton Wood, and To-Do Design are also pioneering two types of apprenticeships as a route into the profession in collaboration with London South Bank University.

Following the architecture apprenticeship initiative led by Foster + Partners, the first group entering the ‘earn while you learn’ program will begin next month in the UK. This approach will offer both professional experience and tuition-free academic training, while also providing a salary to apprentices.

Charles Egbu, dean of London Southbank’s School of Architecture and the Built Environment stated, "These apprenticeship courses will provide an alternative, more cost-effective route to ARB registration, while diversifying the profession and strengthening ties between the architectural industry and academia."

London Southbank’s School of Architecture will be the only one to offer Level 6 apprenticeship. Participating schools also include De Montford, Northumbria, Oxford Brookes, and Portsmouth offering Level 7 qualification.

Firms with wage bills of more than $3.8 million a year have been charged 0.5% of their total wage bill to fund these new apprenticeships. Smaller firms outsi...

Cooper Union Board approves return to full-tuition scholarships for all undergraduates

2018-03-16T13:55:00-04:00

The Cooper Union Board and President released yesterday a plan to return to full-tuition scholarships for all undergraduate students. This decision is the result of an ongoing strategic planning effort of re-examining the schools structure and values after the 150-year tradition of free scholarships was broken in 2014 causing protests and public outcry.

The plan is a modified version of the recommendation published on January 15, 2018 by the Board’s Free Education Committee (FEC).

Consistent with the FEC's recommendation are:

Increases scholarships beginning in two years, provided we meet critical fundraising, operating expense, and operating cash surplus goals.
Returns The Cooper Union to full-tuition scholarships for all undergraduate students in 10 years.
Seeks to generate $250 million over the 10-year timeline to bolster the institution's financial resilience and invest in its world-renowned academic programs.

Some of the Board's modifications include:

Cooper Union will not rais...

New York becomes the first state to make college tuition-free

2017-04-11T12:16:00-04:00

In a historic move, New York has become the first state to make tuition free at four-year public colleges. A measure introduced by Governor Cuomo in January, the legislation was approved by lawmakers this weekend. Middle-class families could save up to $25,880 for a four-year degree at a State University or City University of New York.

The scholarship, dubbed the Excelsior Scholarship, is available for undergraduates enrolled at a SUNY or CUNY school whose families earn less than $100,000 per year. Each year until 2019, the income cap will lift until it reaches $125,000.

The scholarship covers the full cost of tuition, currently $6,470 per year at four-year schools and $4,350 at community colleges. It doesn’t cover fees and other expenses, like the costs of books or room and board. That being said, the budget for the bill includes $8 million to help students gain access to educational resources like e-books.

In order to stay on the scholarship, students have to maintain the GPA necess...

SCI-Arc announces full-tuition scholarship for LAUSD students

2016-12-06T12:52:00-05:00

Are you a LAUSD student who loves architecture and would like to attend SCI-Arc free of charge starting in the fall of 2017? Well, you're in luck: if you apply online by January 15, 2017, you'll be in the running for the recently announced merit-based, full-tuition scholarship for first-year freshmen originating from the metropolitan school district which, if you stay in the top 10% of your class, could last all five collegiate years.

As SCI-Arc director Hernan Diaz Alonso sees it, “SCI-Arc is embedded in the fabric of Los Angeles. With this scholarship we are reaffirming our relationship to the city’s public education system. We are proud of our well-rounded and rigorous Undergraduate program. A Bachelor of Architecture from SCI-Arc provides a creative way to see the world not only in architectural terms, but in sociological, political and economic terms as well.”

Get thee to an application form! In the meantime, check out these related posts about SCI-Arc:

SCI-Arc EDGE launches f...

Cooper Union appoints first woman president Laura Sparks

2016-09-20T18:46:00-04:00

It's been a tumultuous year for Cooper Union: after revoking and then reconsidering its free tuition policy for students last year, the institution saw numerous prominent trustees resign. Now, Cooper Union has appointed executive director of the William Penn Foundation Laura Sparks as its first woman president, whose background in philanthropy and successful community engagement seems like an ideal match for the school. As Sparks noted about her appointment:

"I have been impressed with the passion, commitment and determination of Cooper’s board and search committee to ‘look forward’ while also acknowledging and respecting dissenting views and the voices of many throughout the wider school community. I am eager to meet more of the college’s passionate, thoughtful and accomplished students, and to engage with its extraordinary faculty as we move the institution forward while holding true to its founding principles. I am confident that together we can reaffirm our sense of mission, stab...

Cooper Union to return to tuition-free model

2015-09-02T13:25:00-04:00

The Committee to Save Cooper Union (CSCU) has successfully convinced Cooper Union's Board of Trustees to reconsider their decision to charge tuition to ease the institution's financial crisis, a move that would have upended a 150-year tradition of free scholarships. Along with Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman of the New York Attorney General's Office and the CSCU, Cooper Union signed a Consent Decree that will, in the words of the CSCU, "enable Cooper Union to find a practical path back to its full scholarship model; give alumni, students, faculty, and staff a powerful role in Cooper’s governance; institute strict oversight of the school’s progress toward its goals; spur a serious effort to balance its budget; and reform its governance." The CSCU has correspondingly settled its lawsuit against Cooper Union.

The Attorney General's Office has also filed a cy pres petition, which attributes the Attorney General's intervention in the matter to a need "to safeguard Peter Cooper's irr...

Stanford now offers free tuition for families making less than $125,000 per year

2015-04-02T15:29:00-04:00

If a student's parents make less than $125,000 per year, and if they have assets of less than $300,000, excluding retirement accounts, the parents won't be expected to pay anything toward their children's Stanford tuition. Families with incomes lower than $65,000 won't have to contribute to room and board, either. [...] there's something that every college could emulate about Stanford's policy: it's incredibly simple and straightforward.

Related (among a gazillion other references here on Archinect): The State of Debt and the Price of Architecture, Part 1 & 2.

New York Attorney General is investigating Cooper Union’s finances

2015-03-25T17:44:00-04:00

When CU’s board of trustees decided last year to start charging tuition, its chair Richard S. Lincer claimed that to do so was “the only realistic source of new revenue in the near future.” The Attorney General’s office will be looking into the decisions that left the university in such a precarious financial situation [...] It will also investigate the decision to start charging tuition itself, which was the subject of protests, demonstrations, multiple occupations, and, currently, a lawsuit

Can the new College Ratings System help improve architectural education?

2014-12-19T14:13:00-05:00

Today the Education Department released long-awaited details on a plan to hold colleges accountable for their performance on several key indicators, and officials said they'll be seeking public comment on the proposals through February. [...] Two other possibilities on the list for outcomes are grad-school attendance rates, and loan-repayment rates. That last metric has already been put into place as the "gainful employment rule" for for-profit colleges, which are suing to stop it.

We'd like to hear from you: What predicted implications may the newly announced College Ratings System have on business, culture and education at Schools of Architecture in the U.S.?

Lawsuit Filed Over Cooper Union Tuition

2014-05-28T18:57:00-04:00

Slightly more than a year after the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art announced its plan to charge tuition, a group of professors, admitted students and alumni filed a lawsuit in New York State Supreme Court on Tuesday against the school's board of trustees. The plaintiffs' aim: to stop the school from introducing tuition next fall and to prompt a court investigation into how the board has managed school finances.

Applications to Cooper Union stumble in wake of decision to charge tuition

2014-04-10T17:59:00-04:00

[Cooper Union], which announced last April that it would charge undergraduate students tuition for the first time, released figures on Friday that showed overall applications were down this year by just over 20 percent. [...] The new figures indicate that the admission rate nearly doubled, from 7.7 percent last year to 14.4 percent this year, which still places Cooper Union among the most selective schools in the country.

The freshmen class of Fall 2014 will be the first in Cooper Union's history to pay tuition. It remains to be seen whether Cooper Union's reputation overtime will falter, as quality considerations are matched against tuition rates and student debt, and students are given fewer options to pursue affordable education.

Cooper Union board votes for tuition to begin Fall 2014

2014-01-10T21:03:00-05:00

The Working Group plan puts forward a number of recommendations that are worth pursuing under any financial model. However, we believe that the contingencies and risks inherent in the proposals are too great to supplant the need for new revenue sources. Regrettably, tuition remains the only realistic source of new revenue in the near future.

Below is the entire email announcing the Cooper Union's decision to start charging tuition this fall, breaking the school's 153-year tradition.

Catch-up on the history behind the controversial move, explained in Archinect's 13 top issues of 2013: #5: Free Cooper Union

To: The Cooper Union Community
From: Richard S. Lincer
Date: January 10, 2014
Subject: Working Group Report

In late June 2013, an ambitious plan took shape to provide an alternative to a tuition-based financial plan for The Cooper Union. Authored by trustees, faculty, staff and alumni, this alternative came to be known as the “Working Group Report.” In December, the board began a rigorous review of the assumptions underlying the financial plan that had been adopted by the board in April 2013, and studied in depth the specific recommendations of the Working Group.

This review was conducted by everyone on the Board of Trustees with the assistance of the Huron Group, The Cooper Union’s financial consultants. ...

Cooper Union Students React

2013-04-30T15:23:00-04:00

Students in the School Architecture, with support of Art and Engineering students respond to Cooper Union Board of Trustees failure to uphold the mission of their school through a collaborative intervention upon the School of Architecture Lobby, a white space famously designed by John Hejduk. The students pinned two written statements upon the walls after completion(below). Until the recently announced decision Copper Union was the only school of Art, Architecture, and Engineering in the country to offer full tuition scholarships to all admitted students, admittance based solely on merit.

Statement #1

This space, the third floor lobby of Cooper Union's Foundation Building, is a sacred space, the heart of the School of Architecture. This is our citadel, our platform to address the world. This lobby is a place where we engage in a dialogue of critique, debate, and the free exchange of ideas. The spirit of this space, a work forged from the toil of many great individuals, has...

Cooper Union to charge UG tuition beginning next year

2013-04-23T20:23:00-04:00

Officials at New York City's Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art announced today that the school, famously free to students, will begin charging undergraduate tuition next year.

Via thinkgreen in the forum.

Cooper Union’s Free Tuition Tradition May Be Near Its End

2013-02-16T12:18:00-05:00

The new academic building was glamorous...a statement about just how far the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art had come, from its 19th-century origins as a charity for the poor to one of the most selective colleges in the nation. But that was before market convulsions shook the school’s finances, and before the truth about its dire budgetary situation came to light

Students Seize Cooper Union Room to Protest Possible Tuition

2012-12-03T20:08:00-05:00

Twelve students barricaded themselves inside an eighth-floor room at the top of the Cooper Union Foundation Building at noon on Monday to urge the school not to begin charging tuition to undergraduates. The school has not made a decision on charging tuition for undergraduates. But in April, it decided to begin charging tuition to graduate students for the first time in its 110-year history.

Cooper Union Will Charge Tuition for Graduate Students

2012-04-25T01:57:00-04:00

After months of agonized debate about its 110-year-old tradition of free education, Cooper Union will begin charging graduate students next year while maintaining, at least for now, its no-tuition policy for undergraduates, the college’s president said Tuesday.