Making Cooper Union Free Again

After being roiled by a financial crisis that led to the end of its free-tuition policy in 2014 and the resignation of its president a year later, Cooper Union (NY) is recommitting to free higher education. Laura Sparks became the school’s first female president 18 months ago, inheriting an arts and engineering institution that had a state-appointed independent monitor overseeing its finances and management. The arrangement was the result of a consent decree to end a lawsuit over tuition, which Cooper Union had not charged almost since its inception in 1859.