New York's free tuition... what does it mean?

This fall, tuition drops to zero at the Empire State's public colleges and universities.  The so-called Excelsior Scholarship is available to New York families with gross household incomes of up to $100,000 this year and $125,000 by fall of 2019.

Talk about disruption... I wonder what Clay Christensen is saying about this?

As is so often the case in recent years --- I think of the bond issue in New Jersey that made hundreds of millions of dollars in facility funds available to the Garden State's public universities and dropped a few crumbs on the plates of the privates --- this program makes a mere $3000 in scholarship money available annually to students who selected private colleges.  And then only if tuition is frozen for the four years.

Tuition this year at New York's SUNY system is a bit below $7000, this compared to around $35,000 at most of the privates.  Even with discounts dipping below the 50% mark, it's a hard sell for admissions offices of private, non-profit schools.  Free makes it just about impossible to compete.

Currently, the privates reportedly award a bit more than half of the bachelors degrees conferred across the state.

So what now?  Well, according to news reports, the state's community colleges have only 3-5 % additional capacity and the four-year campuses have even less.  If more students qualify for admission and seek the Excelsior than can be accommodated, a lottery will decide who gets to go.

Consequently, the privates may weather this initial storm.  But not, as I say, without disruption.

Going forward, will Albany be short-sighted enough to allow its stock of private schools to collapse, while investing tax payer dollars into expanding the public sector?  Will the government extend significant scholarship support to the privates?  Or will it take over the privates as they fail and incorporate those campuses into the public system?

The New York experiment --- what Hilary Clinton said she wanted for the nation --- is, without rival, the single most interesting event occurring in higher education just now.  I don't think even Trump can trump this one for potential revolutionary impact.

All of higher ed is watching this one closely.