In the wake of Cooper Union's announcement that they may have to start charging tuition for the first time in 102 years, many people are calling BS on the school, disbelieving that it's actually as broke as it claims it is.
The Times reports that some students, alumni, faculty members and college trustees are pushing for an inquiry into just how Cooper Union got to to this position, especially in light of that spiffy new $111 million building in Cooper Square. “There are a lot of people asking for some kind of an audit, and on the face of it, there might be some justification for that,” said Richard Stock, a professor and the president of the Cooper Union faculty union. “I don’t think that the previous administration tried to convey that there was a serious situation, and if you don’t convey that it’s serious, it’s hard to treat it seriously.”
Brand-new Cooper Union president Jamshed Bharucha said last week that the possibility of requiring tuition was one option that a task force would look into to raise cash for the school, but not everyone thinks that was a smart move: “Frankly, I think it’s a mistake to have this discussion now in the public domain, before doing all the hard work to see whether there are viable alternatives,” previous president George Campbell told the Times.
Our calls to the school for comment were not returned, but so far, student reaction has not been particularly pretty: some staged a walk-out last week, and a "Save Cooper Union Without Tuition" petition has been making the rounds online. Joe Riley, the student who organized the walkout, told us that he's been working with alumni and faculty set create an escrow for people to donate to the school, but not until there's some sort of audit first. Students, he said, are "ready and able to escalate the actions we've carried out so far, but we're waiting to see what happens next."
