THE EFFECTS OF TUITION ON THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC COMPOSITION OF THE STUDENT BODY IN A NEW YORK CITY PUBLIC COLLEGE
Abstract
This study was designed to investigate the effects that the imposition of tuition had on the composition of the students entering components of the City University of New York, an open admission institution, from an economic, political and social framework. In 1976, a policy of tuition was adopted in a university that had been tuition free for 129 years. It investigated why tuition was considered by examining the factors surrounding the change in policy. The role of financial aid was also examined as a means of aiding students affected by tuition. The nature and character of financial aid available as it relates to the CUNY student, as well as to the private college was examined. The study also examined the effects of public policy to see if students shifted their choice from public to private higher education. The group under study consisted of a random sample of entering freshmen students drawn from four colleges in the New York City area. Perhaps the most important result of this research concerns the impact of tuition on the reasons for student selection of a private or public college. The research agrees with the implications of Hopkins (1974) in terms of proximity, family income and public tuitition. The private colleges remain the same as before public tuition. The public colleges showed a decrease in quality as measured by high school average. This may have resulted from an internal policy of maintaining freshmen enrollment levels, as well as external forces of shifting demand for public education. The external forces seemed also to be a factor of confidence in public education. This lack of confidence was demonstrated by daily newspaper reports over the viability of City University of New York. This was an extension of the open admissions issue that also questioned quality, credentials and confidence, less than a decade earlier. The external forces may have contributed to the image problem of public education more than any planned internal policies.
Subject Area
Higher education
Recommended Citation
CALISE, ARCHIE JAMES, "THE EFFECTS OF TUITION ON THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC COMPOSITION OF THE STUDENT BODY IN A NEW YORK CITY PUBLIC COLLEGE" (1983). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI8326164.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI8326164
