As May 1 Nears, N.Y.’s Free-Tuition Plan Sows Confusion About What Private Colleges Can Offer

It’s one week before deposits are due for students who want to attend Siena College, a Roman Catholic institution of about 2,900 students outside of Albany, N.Y.

A team from the admissions office is making its pitch to accepted students and their parents. They’re explaining why the private liberal-arts college, with its small classes and 74-percent four-year graduation rate, offers a better value than the state’s public colleges, whose rates hover around 50 percent.

That can be a tall order when comparing Siena’s tuition sticker price — $36,400 — with the $6,470 charged by the four-year campuses of the State University of New York system.

But the admissions team’s job became even harder two weeks ago, when state lawmakers approved a plan that reduces public-college tuition to zero for families earning up to $100,000 this fall and $125,000 by 2019.

The Excelsior Scholarship, which was drafted by the state’s Democratic governor, Andrew M. Cuomo, applies to both two- and four-year public colleges. It comes with a tangle of strings attached. For instance, it requires that students who get four-year scholarships attend full time and remain in the state for four years after graduating.

It appears to promise a tuition break to students who attend private colleges, but only if those colleges agree to financial concessions they say they don’t have enough information to make before their students’ decision deadline.

All of that has added up to confusion and stress as families try to figure out their next moves with only a few weeks to pore over the fine print in the state’s plan.

The scholarship offer, which has been hailed by many as a way to help middle-class students afford college, has been sharply criticized by private institutions that say they can’t compete with “free.”

They also criticize the timing. The plan “came at a really inopportune time for families that are about to make one of the most important decisions they’ll make without being given full information,” says Mary Beth Labate, president of the Commission on Independent Colleges and Universities in New York. The nonprofit group represents more than 100 private, nonprofit colleges and universities statewide, and its members award 51 percent of the bachelor’s degrees conferred across New York, according to the commission.

Next Monday, May 1, is the deadline that many colleges set for students to make up their minds and pay an enrollment deposit to the college they choose.

At Siena, as is typical for many small colleges, “most of our families decide in the last few weeks,” says Ned J. Jones, vice president for enrollment management.

One of the first questions for some students and families who are on the fence between Siena and SUNY is what paperwork they need to fill out to get the $6,000 scholarship the Excelsior plan appears to be offering to qualified students who attend a private college.

‘Operating at the Margins’

It’s not that easy, though. The governor’s plan does provide qualifying families up to $3,000 toward tuition at a private college in the state. But that assumes the college agrees to match the scholarship and freeze the student’s tuition for all four years.

That’s a commitment that is hard for officials at small, financially strapped private colleges to make, since they have no idea at this point how many students are likely to accept the scholarship offer and what it will mean for their college’s bottom line.

“We’re a school that wants to help our families, but we’re also the kind of place that’s operating on the margins,” says Mr. Jones.

He believes the $19 million the state set aside for scholarships to attend New York’s more than 100 private colleges is far too little to accommodate the number of students who will be interested and eligible. And until Siena College has a better sense of how that money is going to be divvied up among students, and how many are likely to enroll at Siena, it can’t commit to the $3,000 match, he says.

Ms. Labate says private colleges requested a break from the provision that they match the $3,000 scholarships. In addition to the uncertainty about whether they can afford it, she says, financial-aid packages have already been set.

The 13 members of Siena’s admissions team have been reaching out to students and families they’re working with and also letting current students know what income brackets their families fall into, to see whether they would qualify for the scholarships if they become available.

In a statement, Siena’s president, Brother F. Edward Coughlin, decried the pressure the plan puts on students, coming so close to decision deadlines. He cited statistics that compare graduates of Siena to those of SUNY, saying that Siena’s students are more likely to graduate in four years, earn higher salaries after graduating, and are less likely to default on their college loans.

Sometimes, students’ choices come down to in-state versus out-of-state institutions. Marlene Moise, a 17-year-old from Queens, had her heart set on Drexel University, a private institution in Philadelphia where she’s been accepted, when the free-tuition offer made her reconsider. She was also accepted at SUNY’s Binghamton campus but was leaning toward a more urban setting and loved Drexel’s co-op program and engineering emphasis.

But after factoring in the scholarships Drexel offered her, she figures she’d still save about $10,000 a year at Binghamton, assuming she qualifies for the Excelsior Scholarship.

Over the weekend, she planned to visit the Binghamton campus and make her final decision by Wednesday. She had a list of questions, about the grade point average needed to keep the scholarship — hers is about 4.0, but that might be tough to maintain in her intended major — biomedical engineering.

And she plans to get a summer job and isn’t sure whose income will be factored in — hers, her parents’, or both.

If she waits until Drexel’s May 1 deadline for filing her deposit, she’s afraid the rooms in the suite-style dorm she’d hoped to live in will be filled. “Neither of my parents are very tech savvy, so I’ve had to figure this out on my own,” she says. “It’s pretty stressful, but at the same time, the scholarship could be a great relief, financially.”

What If a Dream Job Beckons?

Sally Rubenstone, a college adviser who worked with Ms. Moise, suggested she check out the scholarship but keep in mind the restrictions that come with it. In an email to The Chronicle, Ms. Rubenstone said she reminded her advisee that “if a dream job, (or a dream lover??) in another part of the country beckons after graduation, will she regret her four-year obligation to the Empire State? She would graduate with fewer loans if she grabs the N.Y. scholarship than if she opts for her first-choice private college, but the private college is offering decent aid, and her opportunities to pay back her loans may be broader if she isn’t limited to residency in N.Y.”

As Ms. Moise considers her options, questions about the scholarships have been swirling on online chat sites like College Confidential. One parent, after asking a series of questions about how incomes would be calculated and residency requirements determined, summed up her frustration: “This is so confusing as our whole school and college planning is changing before our eyes.”

The SUNY System has updated its website to answer many of those questions.

Information sessions for accepted students and their families have attracted overflow crowds on some SUNY campuses in recent weeks. On Friday, about 300 accepted students and their parents attended a session at SUNY’s Purchase College, north of New York City. That’s about a third larger than usual for this time of year, says Stephanie McCaine, director of admissions.

The scholarship is a hot topic of conversation, particularly among those who are going to be footing the bill for students deciding between public and private colleges.

“I’ll be honest — it’s mostly the parents asking about the scholarship,” says Ms. McCaine. “The students want to know where the bookstore is.”

Some students have asked whether the free tuition means that classes will be more crowded at the state’s colleges. No one knows for sure.

SUNY officials say their community colleges have 3 to 5 percent physical capacity for new students, and four-year colleges have less. But how many students will accept the scholarship and how big a squeeze that will mean on existing resources remains unknown.

If more students accept the offer — both for public and private institutions — than the state has set aside, a lottery could decide who’s in and who’s out. All of which makes for a lot of uncertainty for families in the coming weeks.

Katherine Mangan writes about community colleges, completion efforts, and job training, as well as other topics in daily news. Follow her on Twitter @KatherineMangan, or email her at katherine.mangan@chronicle.com.