As you may have heard, Governor Cuomo and the NYS
Legislature have enacted a program for free SUNY/CUNY tuition for some New
Yorkers which will be phased in over the next three years. This program
will be administered by the New York State Higher Education Services
Corporation (or HESC), the same agency that administers most state aid
programs, including TAP.
Details remain very sketchy, but the HESC website does have
a good, but basic, Q and A section on it. I’m sending you the link
directly to that section. There is also a place for
interested parties to enter an email address and “subscribe” to receive further
information as it becomes available (though most of the SUNY staff trying to do
so yesterday were unsuccessful).
This award will provide up to $5500 per year and will be the
“last dollar in” – at this point applicants and their families should be
encouraged to file the FAFSA and TAP applications as they normally would.
The actual tuition discount will be higher than the $5500 at SUNY/CUNY
schools where the tuition exceeds that amount but we won’t have to worry about
that piece.
We’ve gotten dozens of phone calls in the past two days, and
we are referring people to hesc.com (though the website seems to be overloaded,
we can only get on about half the times we try).
More information will be shared as details become available.
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