By Allysia Finley
New York’s Gov.
Andrew Cuomo
rolled out a plan last week to give free tuition to middle-class
students attending the state’s public colleges.
Bernie Sanders
and
Hillary Clinton
were quick to praise Mr. Cuomo’s political ploy, whose true
target isn’t New Yorkers but Democratic voters in Iowa and New
Hampshire.
The governor presents himself as a champion of the
middle class, but it has been fleeing the state in droves due to the
lack of jobs and high cost of living. More than 191,000 New Yorkers
decamped last year for other states, 43,000 of them to Florida alone.
About three-quarters of the state’s counties have lost population since
2010, when Mr. Cuomo was elected. The New York City area continues to
grow thanks largely to an influx of foreign immigrants.
Alas,
the plan for tuition-free college merely redistributes income while
giving the middle class little actual help. In fact, many of the
scheme’s putative beneficiaries may be harmed.
Consider
the terms and conditions for the state scholarship. To qualify,
students must come from families earning less than $100,000 ($125,000 by
2019)—and they must attend school full-time and graduate on time. The
State University of New York estimates that about a fifth of its
undergraduates would be eligible. A mere 2% of students at the City
University of New York would qualify—in part because of low graduation
rates, just 5% for full-time students at CUNY’s York College.
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Source: The Wall Street Journal (via The Empire Report)
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