Over 22,000 take advantage of free state tuition

Taxpayers pay for this only to increase by next year. Thank you, Cuomo.
One out of every five students receiving an Excelsior Scholarship — New York's new free tuition program — attends a public college or university in Western New York.

The University at Buffalo, the state's largest public university, enrolled 1,576 Excelsior recipients in the program's first year, the highest number in the state. The University at Albany and Binghamton University, respectively, followed with 1,044 and 940 scholarships. In all, the state awarded 22,044 of the so-called free tuition scholarships to undergraduate students at public colleges statewide. More than 4,300 of the awards went to students at Western New York campuses.
Students from families earning less than $100,000 were eligible this year, as long as they're enrolled full time, maintain a minimum grade-point average and graduate on time. The income threshold moves to $110,000 in 2018 and to $125,000 in 2019.