New York lawmakers have approved a plan to make attending public colleges and universities free for students from middle-class families.

The plan, which New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced back in January, was approved Sunday by the state Senate, after receiving the OK from the state Assembly a day earlier. Under the plan, in-state students whose families earn $125,000 or less can participate. Altogether, the program is expected to cost New York $163 million and is expected to benefit roughly 940,000 families.

New York is the first state to offer free four-year tuition. Previously, Tennessee and Oregon created programs that made community college tuition-free — Tennessee’s initiative in particular inspired former President Obama’s free community college plan. A proposed program in Rhode Island that would make the first two years at one of the state’s public colleges tuition-free has met some resistance, even from Democrats.

The New York plan, nicknamed the Excelsior Scholarship, will be phased in over three years: Families earning up to $100,000 a year will qualify in 2017, families making up to $110,000 per year can participate in 2018 and families with income up to $125,000 can take part in the program in 2019.

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Tuition at the State University of New York schools costs $6,470 for in-state students, while community colleges cost $4,350 for residents.

The New York program borrows heavily from the ideals put forward by the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. But while New York succeeded in passing a free tuition program, other states may not see the same degree of success. The Empire State was a bit of a special case, since it was already more generous than most in funding public higher education (though it’s spent less on higher education since the recession.)

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And free college initiatives can cost states anywhere from $42.8 million (Delaware) to $4.96 billion (California) in revenue from tuition in just the first year, according to a report released last October by the Campaign for Free College Tuition. Plus, some critics have argued that these programs don’t address other factors that make attending college a difficult proposition for lower-income students, such as needing to work part-time to support their families. And these programs may not help to enrich the funding public colleges and universities receive, meaning ones that are under-resourced may stay that way.