On April 5, 2014 the New York Times (
visit link) ran the following story which had been published online the previous day:
"Applications Fall and Admission Rate Rises as Cooper Union Charges Tuition
By ARIEL KAMINER APRIL 4, 2014
The results are in for the first big test of Cooper Union’s new era — the era in which students actually pay to attend — and the university appears to have scored about 80 percent.
The school, which announced last April that it would charge undergraduate students tuition for the first time, released figures on Friday that showed overall applications were down this year by just over 20 percent. Of the 2,537 who sought a spot in this year’s incoming freshman class, the first to be charged tuition, the admissions department accepted a higher percentage than in previous years, on the assumption that fewer of them would choose to enroll. (All 61 of the students offered early admission have accepted.)
Over a century, Cooper Union in the East Village, revered for being “free as air and water,” became one of the most selective in the country, attracting top students in art, architecture and engineering. It received 13 applications for every student it accepted, and those lucky few who were chosen enrolled at an exceptionally high rate.
For most of that time, the school was able to offer a free education because income from its endowment — it owns valuable Manhattan real estate, including the land under the Chrysler Building — covered expenses. But last year, after years of roiling debate, trustees announced a change: Starting with the class arriving this fall, students were to be billed on a sliding scale, from nothing up to $19,800, or half of what the administration says is the true cost of its education.
The change was bitterly received by students, alumni and faculty, some of whom took over the office of President Jamshed Bharucha for months. Among their objections was that whatever tuition might do for the university’s cash flow, it could devastate its admissions standards.
The new figures indicate that the admission rate nearly doubled, from 7.7 percent last year to 14.4 percent this year, which still places Cooper Union among the most selective schools in the country.
“The number of students admitted is greater this year to allow for a class of engineering students that is 25 percent larger, as well as to compensate for a yield” — the percentage of admitted students who choose to attend — “that may be smaller,” the university said in a statement on its website on Friday.
Nonetheless, “the admitted cohort appears fully comparable in its talents and accomplishments to earlier classes, according to staff and faculty who have reviewed application materials.”
Engineering students’ grades and College Board scores held steady. As for the art and architecture schools, admissions decisions rely more on student portfolios than on quantifiable measures. Information about financial aid awards, including how many of the incoming first-year students would attend for free, will not be available until those who were admitted made their final enrollment decisions on May 1."