After months of agonized debate about its 110-year-old tradition of free education, Cooper Union will begin charging graduate students next year while maintaining, at least for now, its no-tuition policy for undergraduates, the college's president said Tuesday. Cooper Union, in the East Village, will also expand its graduate and other programs to generate more income as it searches for a way out of a deepening financial hole. Jamshed Bharucha, who became president last July, said in October that the institution had no choice but to consider making students pay, prompting a storm of protest from some students, alumni and faculty, who saw the idea as a violation of Cooper Union's core principles. The plan announced on Tuesday stopped far short of broad-based tuition, which might have been the simplest and surest route to financial stability. It also fell short of meeting the fiscal target that Cooper Union set last fall. In an interview, Dr. Bharucha made it clear that the college may yet have to be more aggressive about raising revenue. "This hybrid model is exciting because it gives us a chance to do new things and not just hunker down," Dr. Bharucha said. Undergraduate students who begin college in September 2013 will not pay tuition during their four years at Cooper Union, Dr. Bharucha said, but so far, the institution has made no commitments for those who follow them. Cooper Union will also start new programs as soon as 2013, like a master's degree program combining the school's strengths in technology and design, or online programs, to increase both enrollment and revenue. Dr. Bharucha acknowledged that the plan called for "a very accelerated time scale," adding that the college was already in discussions with the State Board of Regents, which must authorize any new programs. Friends of Cooper Union, a group opposed to charging tuition, will hold a long-planned forum on Thursday to explore alternatives, and some of its leaders said they were taken aback that the college would proceed with its plan before hearing them out. "There are a lot of good ideas that haven't had their audience," said Henry Chapman, a 2010 graduate in art who is one of the group's organizers. What they've proposed goes against the school's identity. It's risky, and the fear is, in two or three years, they'll say, "We tried this, it didn't work, and now we have to charge undergraduates." " But some Cooper Union alumni and staff members hailed the idea of a graduate program melding art and engineering. "It's really an impressive vision," said the architect Daniel Libeskind, a 1970 graduate, adding, "We have a boom in technology that is changing the art world, changing architecture very dramatically." Thomas Micchelli, chairman of the school's Faculty-Student Senate, agreed and expressed cautious approval for the administration's plan over all. But Mr. Micchelli, who served on a task force that helped draft the plan, added, "Whether it will solve the financial problems remains to be seen." Cooper Union has about 1,000 undergraduate students in schools of architecture, art and engineering, and fewer than 100 in master's degree programs in architecture and engineering. Technically, the college has a tuition price of $37,500 a year, but it gives each student a full scholarship to cover that cost. The tuition policy is part of a strongly liberal tradition. From its earliest days, Cooper Union accepted women and minorities, and last fall, many of its students participated in the Occupy Wall Street protests. The institution was founded in 1859 by Peter Cooper, a wealthy industrialist, primarily to provide a free education to working-class students. Cooper Union officials said the college had not charged any students in degree programs since 1902, a policy made possible by large gifts left by Cooper and others. Last fall, Dr. Bharucha said that the college had to reduce its annual operating deficits by more than $20 million by 2018. And at a school that has already endured multiple rounds of budget cuts and a hiring freeze, the plan relies on still more cutting, including a 7 percent reduction of the operating budget in the coming academic year. Cooper Union uses its $600 million endowment to cover operating deficits. Its assets include the land under the Chrysler Building in Midtown, on which it collects $7 million a year in rent (the amount is scheduled to rise to $32.5 million in 2018). This year, the college has stepped up its alumni fund-raising, an area where it had been relatively weak, and contributions have increased by almost one-third. Students have also organized a donation drive. Dr. Bharucha said that the college also needed to be more aggressive about making money from its work in technology, which includes starting businesses and licensing patents, but that the efforts could take many years to pay off.