Displaying items by tag: tuition

Jamshed Bharucha, the president of the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art since 2011, has resigned in the latest development in a battle over the historically tuition-free school's move to charge tuition of students who matriculated in fall 2014.

Peter Cooper, who founded the school in 1859, said that education should be "as free as air and water." Shortly after Bharucha took office, he announced that the school had been running at a significant budget deficit for years and that charging tuition would have to be "on the table" as an option to bridge the gap.

Slightly more than a year after the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art announced its plan to charge tuition, a group of professors, admitted students and alumni filed a lawsuit in New York State Supreme Court on Tuesday against the school's board of trustees.

The plaintiffs' aim: to stop the school from introducing tuition next fall and to prompt a court investigation into how the board has managed school finances.

The plaintiffs—a group called the Committee to Save Cooper Union Inc.—are represented by the law firm Emery, Celli, Brinckerhoff, & Abady, which has previously litigated high-profile cases seeking to halt city plans at places including the High Line and the Atlantic Yards.