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For a while, Cooper Union kept itself afloat by leasing out its properties, even if they were going for below market price—a strategy, Salmon wrote, that was "clearly unsustainable." The most recent example was the $97 million, 99-year-long lease of 51 Astor Place, a Cooper Union–owned property that was auctioned off at a discount tomillionaire developer Edward Minskoff, who students say happened to be a friend of the board of trustees. The developer found it difficult to immediately start construction and find tenants—both of which were necessary to pay Cooper the rent it desperately needed. But according to a petition filed by the Committee to Save Cooper Union, Minskoff was granted consecutive delays on rent commitments by the school. Now the black monolith that was erected on Cooper Union's property houses more classes for St. John's University students than it does for Cooper kids.Cooper Union had to become something it never was, basically overnight: a business
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"After the decision to charge, there was this weird energy on campus," Cohen told me. "A sense of powerlessness; it definitely felt like the administration was taking advantage of us because we were young. We had did as much as we could, and we had lost hope about the future.""But now," she continued. "There's this boost of energy with the AG's probe. Like, we enabled this to happen, and now the higher powers are getting involved. Things are finally going in a positive direction."Since the decision to start charging tuition, the board has tried to appease its students, including efforts to diversify its own membership. A student representative has been appointed, even though the board shot down the idea of an Associates Committee, which would've been made up of faculty and professors as a check on the Executive Committee's actions.Sobel, for one, feels betrayed by her alma mater, and finds it harder each passing day to dedicate time to the cause. Even though the tuition charges went into effect after she graduated, she feels the principles by which Peter Cooper built the school have been bought and sold."It's a financial scandal but a cultural problem," she told me. "Universities have to grow, have to be pro-expansion. But if you get through all of that, there's a layer of growth that is just incomprehensible here. It's this exceptionalism that has plagued schools everywhere, and it's just ridiculous. It's like you graduate into this plateau, and you find out everything you were told was essentially false."It's this reality that you've been sold that is completely unreal."Follow John Surico on Twitter."It's this reality that you've been sold that is completely unreal."