Cooper Union, a highly selective arts college in New York City, may change its pay structure for students. The college is famous for covering all tuition costs, but may change tactics due to a budget deficit of $16.5 million. According to the New York Times:
“Altering our scholarship policy will be only as a last resort, but in order to create a sustainable model, it has to be one of the options on the table,” Jamshed Bharucha, who took over as president in July, said in an interview. …
Dr. Bharucha said that in recent decades, the school had resorted to unsustainable practices to support its operations — like selling assets and dipping into the principal of its endowment, which stood at $577 million in mid-2010 — rather than just spending the endowment’s earnings. In recent years, it also spent heavily on a new academic building and renovations of its historic building, both on Cooper Square.
The school also generates significant income from real estate it owns, including the land under the Chrysler Building, but the value of those properties has also been dropping.
The college admits only about 275 out of 3,500 applicants each year, according to The Huffington Post.
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