Students Going To College for Free?

Megan Manning, Editor

    Recently several states have been offering students free college tuition, one of the most recent scholarships is New York and their passing of the Excelsior Scholarship. This scholarship starts fall of 2017 for New Yorkers making $100,000 or less and by 2019 it will be for those making $125,000 a year. Now this isn’t for one school in New York, it is for all public universities.

   Along with New York several schools are providing a similar scholarship for free tuition, including colleges like Cornell, Duke and many others. By offering free tuition to middle class students, they have the opportunity to get a great education for free. It can also influence high school seniors to look at different schools than they originally planned because of the financial plan offered.

   With these new scholarships popping up around the US it sways the students to apply in order to save them and their families thousands of dollars of debt for the education. For example students wishing to attend Duke can earn up to $48,000 towards their tuition due to how much their family makes per year. When awarded the scholarship money students are expected to invest to their education through their work in the summer, freshman need to make $2,100 during the summer break and each year a hundred dollars is added to the students required earnings. In their final year, the student is required to make $2,600 as a senior.

   This may seem like an inconvenience but by receiving the scholarship money families save their money and instead of spending it all on tuition they can pay towards the students board, books and food. Which is a large reduction without the cost of tuition on top of it all.