Free College Programs Should Be Simple, New York’s Excelsior Scholarship Is Not

The Urban Institute released a new report assessing how successful New York State’s free college program, Excelsior, has been in the five years since it was instituted. The verdict is not good. The program was the first free college proposal to cover both two and four-year institutions, leading to praise from some quarters but a lot of critique about the complexity of its design. Those critiques are holding true.

Simple, effective design of free college programs is vital to help students access college and understand what they are going to pay when they start college. Excelsior is a prime example of complex requirements getting in the way of good policy ideas, preventing many eligible students from benefiting from the program.