The City University of New York waives out-of-state tuition fees for funded first-year graduate students. By their second year, having already spent 12 months or more in New York State, these students qualify as residents on their own. The pandemic threw that typical timeline off course, however, as many graduate students didn’t or couldn’t move to New York last summer. And there was little incentive to uproot then, as CUNY’s Graduate Center remained online for the fall and spring terms. Departments also reassured out-of-state students that they would still qualify for in-state tuition when they eventually arrived. These students are in New York now, ready to begin their second year of study. But they’re facing thousands of dollars in out-of-state tuition fees -- the ones they were told not to worry about.
