Backed by Bernie Sanders, this governor's plan for free college could be a game-changer.
"Other countries have already done it. It's time this country catches up."
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo just announced a landmark plan to make college tuition-free for low- and middle-income families in New York.
The plan is called the Excelsior Scholarship, and it will take effect over the next three years, applying to any student attending a two- or four-year state or city university whose family earns less than $125,000 a year.
Considering that the median household income in New York state was $60,850 in 2015, this could make a huge difference for many families trying to send their kids to college.
"College is a mandatory step if you really want to be a success ... and this society should say we're going to pay for college because you need college to be successful," Cuomo said in his Jan. 3 announcement alongside Sen. Bernie Sanders, who made debt-free college a big part of his presidential campaign. "Other countries have already done it. It's time this country catches up."
Sanders is far from just a silent backer of the project. He took the stage to give a short speech expressing his support for Cuomo's plan, later tweeting, "If New York makes public colleges and universities tuition-free, mark my words, state after state will follow."
Cuomo's plan could be America's first big step toward what many schools across Europe already offer: free or nearly free college tuition for all residents.
Image via iStock.
Public colleges in Germany, Norway, Iceland, and Finland all offer free college tuition for students, no matter their household income — those countries even offer the same deal to international students, which is why American students sometimes opt to go abroad for their degrees.
Free tuition does come with a cost. The money has to come from somewhere, after all.
The reason colleges in other countries are able to offer free tuition is because their citizens pay more in taxes. Countries like Germany also have lower enrollment percentages than the U.S. as a whole.
New York has the third-largest state economy in the United States (on par with all of Canada), with over 1.3 million students attending public colleges. So the program could end up costing much more than the current proposal of $163 million.
There is evidence that tuition-free programs for middle- and low-income students do work in the U.S. on a smaller scale.
In 2015, Stanford University announced tuition would be free for students from households earning $125,000 and under. In fact, all the Ivy League schools (along with other privately owned schools) offer tuition wavers for households earning $75,000 or less. Just as a state would draw from taxes, these schools draw from student tuition funds and other funding sources to make economic diversity on campus a reality.
Stanford University. Photo by Harshlight/Flickr.
Cuomo's plan for one of the wealthiest states in the country has the potential to set a precedent to finally open those doors to any American who wants to walk through them.
Higher education should not only be available to the financially savvy or those lucky enough to be born into wealthy families. No one should have to go into severe debt to get the degree they need to get a job, contribute to the economy, and succeed in life.
You can show your support and learn more about the Excelsior Scholarship program here.
Men try to read the most disturbing comments women get online back to them.
If you wouldn't say it to their faces, don't type it.
This isn’t comfortable to talk about.
Trigger warning for discussion of sexual assault and violence.
in 2016, a video by Just Not Sports took two prominent female sportswriters and had regular guys* read the awful abuse they receive online aloud.
Sportswriters Sarah Spain and Julie DiCaro sat by as men read some of the most vile tweets they receive on a daily basis. See how long you can last watching it.
*(Note: The men reading them did not write these comments; they're just being helpful volunteers to prove a point.)
It starts out kind of jokey but eventually devolves into messages like this:
Awful.
All images and GIFs from Just Not Sports/YouTube.
These types of messages come in response to one thing: The women were doing their jobs.
Those wishes that DiCaro would die by hockey stick and get raped? Those were the result of her simply reporting on the National Hockey League's most disturbing ordeal: the Patrick Kane rape case, in which one of the league's top players was accused of rape.
DiCaro wasn't writing opinion pieces. She was simply reporting things like what the police said, statements from lawyers, and just general everyday work reporters do. In response, she received a deluge of death threats. Her male colleagues didn't receive nearly the same amount of abuse.
It got to the point where she and her employer thought it best for her to stay home for a day or two for her own physical safety.
The men in the video seemed absolutely shocked that real live human beings would attack someone simply for doing their job.
Not saying it.
All images and GIFs from Just Not Sports/YouTube.
Most found themselves speechless or, at very least, struggling to read the words being presented.
It evoked shame and sympathy.
All images and GIFs from Just Not Sports/YouTube.
Think this is all just anecdotal? There's evidence to the contrary.
The Guardian did a study to find out how bad this problem really is. They combed through more than 70 million comments that have been posted on their site since 2006 and counted the number of comments that violated their comment policy and were blocked.
The stats were staggering.
From their comprehensive and disturbing article:
If you can’t say it to their face... don’t type it.
All images and GIFs from Just Not Sports/YouTube.
So, what can people do about this kind of harassment once they know it exists?
There are no easy answers. But the more people who know this behavior exists, the more people there will be to tell others it's not OK to talk to anyone like that.
Watch the whole video below:
.This article originally appeared nine years ago.