MAY 16, 2013: What Caused Cooper Union’s Fiscal Woes and Is Ending Free Tuition the Answer?

Students and administrators at New York City’s Cooper Union are clashing over the future of one of the last private universities in the United States to offer free tuition. Activists are occupying the president’s office for a ninth day after the school said fiscal problems would force an end to more than a century of free tuition for undergraduates. We host a debate with three guests: Mark Epstein, the chairman of the board of trustees for Cooper Union; Victoria Sobel, a Cooper Union student organizer who is among the activists who have occupied the president’s office for over a week; and Reuters finance blogger Felix Salmon.

GUESTS

Mark Epstein

chairman of the board of trustees for Cooper Union. He supports changing Cooper Union’s free tuition policy.

Victoria Sobel

a Cooper Union student organizer who has been working on the Free Cooper campaign. She is among the activists who have occupied the president’s office for over a week.

Felix Salmon

a finance blogger at Reuters who has written several articles on Cooper Union, most recently, “Are Cooper Union’s Finances Fixable?”

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Cooper Union financial crisis and tuition protests

The Cooper Union financial crisis and tuition protests constitute the events surrounding Cooper Union's announcement that they would begin charging tuition after being a tuition-free school for most of its history. The possible mismanagement of the school's finances and the subsequent reactions of students, faculty, alumni and organized protest groups attracted widespread media attention. Activist groups staged a series of occupations and protests demanding the resignation of the school president, Jamshed Bharucha, promoting a vote of no confidence in Bharucha and the school's Board Chair, Mark Epstein,[1] both of whom resigned in 2015, and insisting that the administration address the concerns of students, faculty, alumni, and the public, and alternate plans to avoid having the school charging tuition.

It has been reported that the Cooper Union financial crisis was due to a combination of problems caused by poor fiscal decisions, lack of accountability, the economic recession of the late 2000s, the selling off of the institution's assets, and taking on significant debt due to the 2009 building of 41 Cooper Square, which cost the school US$175 million.[2][3] In fiscal year 2009 ending in June, Cooper Union's managed assets (including investments in hedge funds) lost 14%, and the value of its endowment in 2013 was lower than it was at the end of fiscal year 2008, even as the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index hit new highs.[2]

Cooper Union assessed tuition for the freshman class of 2014, with plans for tuition for future students.

The New York State Attorney General reached an agreement in September 2015 to settle a lawsuit filed by the Committee to Save Cooper Union against the board of trustees. A consent decree, signed by the attorney general and both parties in the lawsuit and pending court approval, outlined additional fiscal and administrative oversight of the school by the attorney general and made provisions for students, alumni, and faculty, who would work with the board of trustees to determine how Cooper Union could return to a tuition-free school.[4][5]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooper_Union_financial_crisis_and_tuition_protests