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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...

AIA releases study on student debt and its impact on demographic groups within the industry

2022-12-07T12:30:00-05:00

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has released a new study examining the impact of student debt across different demographic groups in the architecture industry.

The organization used the research company Ipsos to conduct an interview survey of over 700 members who provided insights on how everything from employment to life choices was affected by the repayment of educational loans.

AIA EVP and CEO Lakisha Ann Woods said: "This data provides critical insight into how student debt is harming the profession. Through a better understanding of how debt impacts different demographic groups among our membership, this data will help us break barriers to the profession that disproportionately impact Black, Indigenous, and people of color. Our goal is to propel all architects to new professional heights."

Among other data, the survey found:

Nearly three-quarters (73%) of all AIA membe...

Snapchat co-founder offers to repay student loans for Otis 2022 grads

2022-05-18T14:47:00-04:00

Otis College of Art and Design has received a significant donation that will allow for the payment of student loans of students in the graduating Class of 2022. The money comes from Snap Inc. CEO Evan Spiegel and his wife Miranda Kerr, KORA Organics CEO and model, through their philanthropic foundation, the Spiegel Family Fund. This is the largest single gift in the history of the school.

“Student debt weighs heavily on our diverse and talented graduates,” said Otis College of Art and Design President Charles Hirschhorn. “We hope this donation will provide much-deserved relief and empower them to pursue their aspirations and careers, pay this generosity forward, and become the next leaders of our community.”

The donation was announced during Otis College’s 2022 Commencement, where Spiegel, Kerr, and interior designer and Queer Eye host Bobby Berk received honorary degrees. Spiegel attended a high school summer program at Otis College when he was 15 prior to attending Stanford Univer...

AIA teams up with members of Congress to address student loan debt forgiveness

2021-09-28T16:40:00-04:00

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has announced that they are working with members of Congress to help craft student loan debt relief and create more entryways towards the architecture field.

The potential pathways for student loan debt relief include service-based loan forgiveness in the Civilian Climate Corps, a newly proposed $10 billion program that would employ young people to short-term jobs or training programs that focus on renewable technology and building resilience against the threats of climate change. AIA is teaming up with the American Bar Association to highlight that high student loan debt is an equity issue that deters students from considering professions in architecture.

AIA 2021 President Peter Exley, FAIA, and AIA EVP/Chief Executive Officer Robert Ivy, FAIA, met with South Carolina Representative Jim Clyburn on September 21 to explain how student loan debt is negatively impacting the architecture profession.

“AIA stands ready to work with Congressman...

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...

Betsy DeVos’s summer home resides in McMansion Hell

2018-08-09T14:16:00-04:00

Two weeks ago, somebody untied Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos’s $40 million yacht from its mooring. It got me thinking about another opulent display of wealth owned by DeVos: her 22,000-square-foot nautical-themed summer mansion, located in Holland, Michigan. Just a few more years of climate change and it’ll be floating too.

Kate Wagner critiques Betsy DeVos’s Michigan summer mansion on her humor blog McMansion Hell. Wagner unpacks not only the architectural design but also the greater social implications of why the education secretary's McMansion is so horrendous. The essay is dedicated to "all of the public school teachers who taught [Wagner] how to write".

Betsy DeVos's summer home on McMansion Hell. Image: Kate Wagner/Advance Media/Barcroft Images.

Betsy DeVos's summer home on McMansion Hell. Image: Kate Wagner/Pricey Pads.

The hedge fundification of American universities

2016-03-11T14:27:00-05:00

Have you heard the latest wisecrack about Harvard? People are calling it a hedge fund with a university attached [...] Though the exact figure is hard to determine, experts I consulted estimate that over $100 billion of educational endowment money nationwide is invested in hedge funds, costing them approximately $2.5 billion in fees in 2015 alone. The problems with hedge funds managing college endowments are manifold, going well beyond the exorbitant...fees they charge for their services.

"The time has come for students to connect the dots between ballooning student debt, the poor treatment of campus workers, and the obscene wealth of hedge fund oligarchs."

A rallying cry for a divestment movement to oppose hedge funds and their involvement with academia, the article discusses the relatively new relationship between universities and high risk investing. Not only are money managers – and often university trustees – making off with obscene profits, the finance industry has actively lobbied against policies "designed to curb inequality."

For more on the implications and ramifications of academia's historically-unprecedented flirtations with finance, check out these links:

Sydney architecture intern underpaid almost $7000

2015-03-18T15:49:00-04:00

A student was underpaid almost $7000 during an internship with a Sydney firm of architects, a Fair Work Ombudsman investigation has found. The student was completing a masters degree in architecture when he was paid $12 per hour for six months of full-time work. His duties included architectural drawing, consulting with clients and and conducting site visits...the student, aged in his 20s,... was short-changed $6830.

According to Australian labor laws, the student was performing work that was not part of his architectural education and should have received minimum wage payment. Australia's minimum wage is $16.88 (in comparison, the US minimum wage is currently $7.25/hr) and after the student's graduation his payment should have risen to $21.19 an hour.

This news is the latest in a gathering storm surrounding the abuse of intern labor in architecture and other fields. For example, former interns at the publisher Condé Nast recently won a lawsuit against the firm, collecting a total of $5.8 million for unpaid labor (divided among 7,500 people).

The issue is part of a larger, systematic problem that inhibits young people at the nascence of their careers. In conjunction with the massive loans need to get educated, un- and underpaid internships are an impossible burden to shoulder for many aspiring architects, yet are often presented as a normal and necessary aspect of getting into the profession. For...

Episode 6 of Archinect Sessions, "Money Changes Everything", is out now!

2014-11-13T17:30:00-05:00

This week on the podcast: student debt, Chicago's "State of the Art of Architecture", and our new series, Archinect's Lexicon. Paul, Amelia, Donna and Ken are joined by architecture students Jarrod and Elliott to discuss how student debt is changing their lives and careers. We also consider what Chicago has in store for its inaugural architectural biennial next year, and how architectural language (and English in general) is changing with the internet.

As always, you can tweet questions/comments about podcast topics to #archinectsessions, or leave a message for us at (213) 784-7421. You could hear your voice on the next episode.

Listen to episode six of the Archinect Sessions podcast, "The State of Architecture is Debt":

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Student loan default rates don't tell the whole story

2014-09-24T12:44:00-04:00

This week, the U.S. Department of Education will release data on the percentage of borrowers who have defaulted on federal student loans over the last three years. Schools with high rates of default face consequences. [...] Is default the student’s burden? Or the institution’s? And the federal government doesn’t always consider a would-be borrowers’ credit risk the way private lenders can.

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.