With the recent passing of the New York State Budget, Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D.) has initiated a free college tuition program, the first of its kind in the country. A major win for democrats and progressives, this program, which provides free tuition to any of the state's SUNY or CUNY 2 or 4 year schools, seems like a great deal, and that it will set the tone for other states to follow. However, it comes with many stipulations, and many criticisms.
The most important and first question is this, who gets free college? Well, your family must make under $125,000 in combined income and you must have your parents claim you on their taxes. Thus you can't claim Independence on your taxes and claim that your $10 dollar an hour work study qualifies you for free tuition. You also have to be a New York State residence. The 125,000 cap will roll out over three phases. The first phase, which starts this fall, covers students whose parents make under 100,000, the second phase starts Fall 2018 and covers those whose parents make under 110,000, the final phase will debut in Fall 2019 and is for those under the 125,000 benchmark.
For students who attend private schools there is also a 3,000 a semester scholarship which is roughly equal to that of SUNY tuition. However, there is a catch. You must maintain a 3.0 to remain eligible. However, more pressing, if a student elects to receive this Excelsior scholarship, so named after the State's motto, (I'm guessing some intern came up with that and did NOT get credit), then they must remain in New York and work for as long as they received the scholarship. Thus if you get the money for four years, you work in New York for four years. This addition to the bill was a last minute pitch made by state Republicans. This applies to the private and public scholarship. If a student goes to graduate school out of state, they can differ the time they must work in New York, but they must come back after graduate school. If a student graduates and elects to move to a different state, the scholarship turns into a student loans.
While there are many positives and negatives to this program, I am here to discuss my biggest problem with the Excelsior program, the fact that it cheapens the National Guard. In the NYARNG, (New York Army National Guard), all service members are offered free SUNY tuition as an incentive to enlist. While this seems like a bad way to motivate Soldiers, and you should want people to join because they love their country and want to serve selflessly, the reality of the matter is that many enlist to put themselves through school. Only 1 in 3 Guard Soldiers reenlist, thus many are in it for the tuition. As long as they serve honorably and fufill their contract, there is nothing wrong with joining just for this. I believe that giving free tuition like Cuomo has cheapens his own National Guard and is an insult to the men and women who fought and earned it.
I seriously believe that enlistment rates for the Guard. and the active Army will plummet, which is all the more concerning in these uncertain geopolitical times. Cuomo has severely threatened the readiness of his own State Army and it will be interesting to see how this affects the Guard.
