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Free Tuition Only Helps If Graduates Stick Around New York State Afterward

Here’s one more aspect of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s tuition-free state college proposal that needs to be addressed.

Our area has struggled with the so-called “brain drain.” Students get a K-12 education here, go off to college and find jobs in other parts of the country.

If somehow, some way, New York state is able to fund middle-class students’ higher education, those individuals should be required to live in New York state after they graduate. If the students get free or even heavily subsidized education by being state residents, they need to become taxpayers and contribute to the economy. You could even set it up as a finite time for, say, five or 10 years. And if the students choose to leave the state, then they should be required to pay back the free or reduced tuition they’ve received, prorated based on how much of the required time they spent here after college.

New York already spends more money per student on higher education than all but three states, according to the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems, and it spends more money per pupil on K-12 education than any other state. New York taxpayers pay to educate students who then move to more business-friendly states — which have both lower taxes and, correspondingly, worse public schools. Those states rely to some degree on us for their economic well-being.

That dynamic is not going to change anytime soon, but Gov. Cuomo’s proposal provides an opportunity to protect at least part of our investment.

Will free SUNY tuition become a reality for families who earn less than $125,000 a year? It seems a little hard to believe, but if it is possible, then those who benefit need to become responsible New York state taxpayers.

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