Every year since his first as governor, Governor Cuomo uses the time after passage of the budget to take a statewide \u201cvictory lap\u201d to stress what he sees as the most significant achievements. \u00a0This year has been no different: \u00a0The governor has used the week or so after passage of the budget to focus public attention on his plan to offer tuition-free public college.<\/p>\n
The governor\u2019s rationale for the program boiled down to this: \u00a0Progressives at the dawn of the 20th<\/sup> Century correctly advocated for universal K-12 education, and progressives in the 21st<\/sup> Century should consider a college degree the extension of that promise.<\/p>\n The governor held public events to draw attention to his success.\u00a0 At one with Hillary Clinton, a placard on the lectern stated \u201cFIRST-IN-NATION TUITION-FREE COLLEGE FOR THE MIDDLE CLASS.\u201d<\/p>\n The governor has received attention both within the state and nationally for his plan.\u00a0 Not surprisingly, the \u201cExcelsior Scholarship\u201d program, as his tuition-free plan is called, has drawn both praise and criticism.\u00a0 The criticism comes from two sources: those who have an ideological opposition to entitlement programs and those who see the plan to be more rhetorical than real.<\/p>\n The Excelsior Scholarship program\u2019s \u201ctuition-free\u201d promise should come with an asterisk.\u00a0 It does not cover everyone and is designed to minimize costs for the state.\u00a0 The plan only applies to families whose income is less than $125,000.<\/p>\n And not everyone making less than $125,000 a year would qualify. \u00a0The governor\u2019s plan is a \u201clast dollar\u201d program, meaning it will only apply once all other forms of government aid have been applied. \u00a0New York\u2019s financial aid programs already offer tuition coverage for the poorest public college students.\u00a0 Thus, the prime beneficiaries of the Excelsior Scholarship are families with incomes of roughly $50,000 or more.\u00a0 The program has credit and performance limitations as well; if a student doesn\u2019t obtain 30 credits in one year, for example, they lose the scholarship and would likely be forced to take out a loan to pay for the credits they did receive.<\/p>\n These limitations were efforts to limit the cost of the program and in doing so, limit the number of students who will likely benefit.\u00a0 While the Administration has publicly stated that upwards of 900,000 New York families would be eligible<\/em>, others have estimated that the number of families that would actually receive<\/em> benefits is more like 32,000.<\/p>\n The limitations on the program are real, that is without doubt. \u00a0And the governor\u2019s \u201csales job\u201d creates an impression that the program is more than it really is.<\/p>\n But is that a reason to oppose it?\u00a0 No.<\/p>\n As many of us may recall, in the early Obama years, there was a debate over offering health insurance to those without coverage.\u00a0 Ultimately, the Affordable Care Act passed, but did not contain a public option and did not offer universal coverage.<\/p>\n But for the millions who did receive coverage, it mattered.<\/p>\n In this case, for those who receive the Excelsior Scholarship the benefits will be real.\u00a0 In some cases, it may offer a path to a college degree that did not exist \u2013 or would have led to significant college loan debts.\u00a0 For those individuals, there will be tangible benefits.<\/p>\n Part of the blowback to the program is the fact that the governor is overhyping the impact.\u00a0 What is true is that this program is innovative and offers real benefits and could lay the foundation for efforts to expand it over time.<\/p>\n For many, the Affordable Care Act was one step toward universal coverage, a step that benefited tens of millions.<\/p>\n The question for Governor Cuomo is whether this is the first, or last, step.\u00a0 If this is the beginning and will be followed with something that was missing from his initial plan \u2013 public debate and hearings \u2013 then a stronger program will result; a program that will meet the reality of the governor\u2019s rhetoric.<\/p>\n If it\u2019s just one plan that is now done, then the political benefits to the governor will erode and will fit into a pattern all too familiar in Albany: policy changes that deal with real problems, but do so in such a limited way that it undermines the program and fuels public cynicism.<\/p>\n For the benefit of all New Yorkers, let\u2019s hope that this is the beginning of a real effort to make college as affordable as K-12 education.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Every year since his first as governor, Governor Cuomo uses the time after passage of the budget to take a statewide \u201cvictory lap\u201d to stress what he sees as the most significant achievements. \u00a0This year has been no different: \u00a0The governor has used the week or so after passage of the budget to focus public […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1867"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1867\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1870,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1867\/revisions\/1870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}