New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Excelsior Scholarship has not influenced SUNY-ESF students in a significant way, according to SUNY-ESF Undergraduate Student Association President Ben Taylor.

He doesn’t expect it to in coming years, either.

The Excelsior Scholarship, announced in April 2017 and officially launched at the beginning of this academic year, pays for a recipient’s tuition costs at all State University of New York or City University of New York schools.

The website advertises that 940,000 middle-class families and individuals will qualify for the scholarship. The state anticipated 23,000 students to benefit from the scholarship out of the 75,000 who applied,  according to The New York Times.

About 7 percent , or about 158 students of the SUNY-ESF student body qualify for the scholarship, Taylor said. The SUNY-ESF financial aid office officials and he calculated the statistic.

“There’s one person that I know who has applied for it,” Taylor said. “ …  I think it’s being played up as a bigger deal than it actually is.”

The exact number of students who applied for or received the scholarship at SUNY-ESF is unknown. SUNY press secretary Holly Liapis did not respond to a request for comment on this story.

The SUNY-ESF Office of Communications made Director of Financial Aid Mark Hill unavailable for comment. The head of the SUNY-ESF Office of Communications, Claire Dunn, when asked to comment, responded in August that there was no one on campus available to talk about the Excelsior Scholarship.

To apply for the 2017-18 academic year, an applicant’s total family federal adjusted gross income cannot exceed $100,000. Applicants must also be residents of New York state, attend a SUNY or CUNY two- or four- year degree program, take 30 credits per calendar year and plan to live and work in New York for some time after graduation, according to the New York state website.

If requirements for the scholarship aren’t met by recipients, the money awarded will become a loan. According to the state’s website, recipients of the scholarship may receive up to $5,500. That amount will be reduced by the amount of other financial aid awards the student receives.

SUNY-ESF tuition is currently $6,470 for in-state residents.

“(The Excelsior Scholarship) will help students across the state, and it will help students across ESF. But it is not free tuition. It’s not free college. And it comes with a ton of strings attached,” Taylor said.

The total per year cost of attending the university is between $26,193 and $28,193, according to the SUNY-ESF website.

The New York State Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Incentive Program offers a full SUNY tuition scholarship for New York state high school students if they pursue a STEM degree in an associate’s or bachelor’s degree program and agree to live in New York state.

They also must agree to work in a STEM field in New York state for five years after graduation.

The STEM incentive program has similar requirements and benefits to the Excelsior Scholarship.

The launch of the STEM scholarship “helped a lot of students at ESF. But it didn’t really change anything,” Taylor said. He is a recipient of the NYS STEM incentive program.

SUNY Chancellor Kristina Johnson, who officially took office on Sept. 5, said in her welcome address that the Excelsior Scholarship program is “one of many powerful tools” SUNY will use to give students the “opportunity to grow” in a SUNY environment.

“We are just starting to tap into (the Excelsior Scholarship’s) potential,” Johnson said.

Taylor said he believes the scholarship will not have a large impact on SUNY-ESF because the scholarship only covers tuition costs and the college’s students have specific dreams and passions. The students who want a degree from SUNY-ESF will end up there, Taylor said.

“We get it. We read the news. We’re pretty in tune with the political landscape. Nobody is jumping out of their seats and praising Andrew Cuomo for this thing,” Taylor said. “We’re pretty realistic.”

Published on September 6, 2017 at 9:48 pm

Contact Ali: akharfor@syr.edu