Why wouldn't this have a positive effect on you? For one, if you are in New York or the Tri-State area, then a new (hopefully prestigious) tech school should a

Why wouldn't this have a positive effect on you? For one, if you are in New York or the Tri-State area, then a new (hopefully prestigious) tech school should at the very least pull more attention and business to this area, and hopefully educate future engineers that will fill empty spots in industry. It's true there are only 8 students this semester, but they don't even have a campus yet! According to Cornell's timeline, students will be moving to Roosevelt Island in 2017, at which point I'd imagine there will be at least a few hundred. cite: http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2013/01/cornell-tech-welcomes-its-first-class-students http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2013/01/cornell-tech-wel... Second, if Cornell Tech succeeds, it would help provide direction to other states and universities who would like to do something similar. As an article in the nytimes stated previously: "Colleges and universities across the country — a great many of which are scrambling to find new ways to finance scientific research, as well as new ways to profit from the fruits of that research — are watching closely. In the last year, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has announced the creation of technology schools by both Columbia and New York University. And Cornell’s president, David J. Skorton, said he had been visited by representatives from other cities hopeful that the Cornell NYC Tech model might work there, too." cite: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/22/nyregion/cornell-nyc-tech-will-foster-commerce-amid-education.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/22/nyregion/cornell-nyc-tech-... I hope that online education prospers so that more people can learn what they need with less barriers (low supply, travel, cost), but I think that's mutually exclusive to what Cornell is doing. I think we need to ask a question for college students: Where does Cornell Tech find itself among the list of prestigious CS Masters Programs? I also think we (the hacker news community, and engineers in general) need to pool together and see what we want Cornell Tech to turn into. It's a very rare time that we get to see a University in its early stages, and given that it seems Cornell Tech cares heavily about technology, they may listen to what we have to say.