The Cooper Union students who’ve been fighting the advent of tuition — at one point camping out in president Jamshed Bharucha’s office and getting pizza deliveries by balloon — have been going hard lately. They’re just coming off of “Two Weeks of Leaks,” during which they attempted to discredit the school’s administration by posting internal documents such as, um, these instructions on how to toss to president’s salad. And now they’ve got another trick up their smocks: just like that other victim of Cooper Union’s financial woes, the St. Mark’s Bookshop, the students of the School of Architecture have launched an online crowdfunding campaign.
A website that launched Friday aims to raise $600,000 from students, alumni, parents, faculty members and anyone else who thinks free rides are groovy. That would cover the nearly $20,000 in tuition that each of the estimated 30 incoming architecture undergrads will be asked to pay next year (the school will cut its traditional full scholarships to half scholarships starting in the Fall).
Tis the season of giving — why not take a break from paying off your own student loans and help an architecture student out?