Dive Brief:
- Cooper Union President Jamshed Bharucha will end his four-year tenure at the long-free art and science college this June.
- The Wall Street Journal reports his resignation was highly anticipated following months of infighting among the board of trustees, five of whom — all Bharucha supporters — resigned in unison on Tuesday.
- The board chairman and Bharucha butted heads over leadership strategy in the face of protests from students opposed to newly instated tuition payments as well as a financial probe by the New York State attorney general.
Dive Insight:
The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art is a private college in Manhattan, founded in 1859 as a free higher education option for the brightest students, modeled after the École Polytechnique in France. New students were charged tuition beginning in the fall of 2014 on an income-based sliding scale. Those with the greatest need can still attend for free.
College leaders said charging those who can afford it some tuition would help make the college more accessible for students from low-income backgrounds who, absent tuition payments, still had a hard time paying to live in high-priced Manhattan. The college had been struggling financially for some time. The five trustee resignations and Bharucha’s departure will significantly shake up the 23-member board at a time when the school most needs strong, unified leadership.