Employees of the University of Rochester are losing a major benefit: free tuition for their children who attend the college.
Administrators at the private college tell the Democrat and Chronicle of Rochester that starting in 2013, children of the university's faculty and staff will no longer get free tuition.
But they won't have to pay UR's tuition of nearly $43,000. Instead, they'll pay the rate charged to attend the state's public four-year colleges, about $5,600.
About 17,300 of the more than 20,000 UR employees have been eligible for this tuition benefit for their children. The full break on tuition went into effect for the 2006-2007 school year and applies only to students who are undergraduates.
The change won't affect students already enrolled at UR or who will begin college this fall.
Administrators say the free tuition was an expensive benefit used by a relatively small number of employees.
With more than 20,000 employees, the university is Rochester's biggest employer.
Many U.S. colleges offer free tuition to employees' children.
In 2010, the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources published the results of its survey and found that 92 percent of 331 colleges responding provided tuition benefits to the children of the colleges' employees.
