How disruptive was "free tuition" for NY residents?

[Hibush]

New York rolled out the Excelsior scholarship a few years ago with the big promise of providing free tuition to public colleges for New York residents. There were a bunch of expectations, one of which was that it would hurt enrolment at the many small private colleges in NY, PA, MA and VT that are not eligible for this subsidy.

The requirements are pretty strict so that the program is limited to serious studens. NYS resident, income under $125k and continuous enrollment passing >30 credits per academic year.

The max aid is $5,500 towards tuition at SUNY or CUNY (resident tuition is $7,000) or community colleges (tuition $5,000).

The good news is the 180,000 students qualified for the scolarship last year. That's a lot.

Resident tuition is already so low that private colleges are not competing for these students. The tuition discout would have to be so large that they'd be losing money.

The promise of "free college" is hyperbole. This is just tuition. Going to college full-time for two or four years is still a big outlay with little or no income from the student. I'm really curious to know which demographics this program is most useful for, and which intended beneficiaries it is not reaching.

[apl68]

It would be interesting to see how this experiment--and a couple of others that other states were running along those lines--has been faring.