the MET is charging out-of-town visitors
NEW YORK — The Metropolitan Museum of Art is partially abandoning its “pay-what-you-wish” admissions policy. Starting March 1, the museum will charge a mandatory $25 entrance fee to most adult visitors who don’t live in New York state.
Entrance will remain free for all children under 12 and pay-what-you-wish for students up to graduate school in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Students living outside the tri-state area will be charged $12 and seniors $17.
The money-losing institution is trying to turn around a multi-million-dollar budget deficit — and is in talks with the city to adjust its pricing scheme. The extra money -- an estimated $6 million to $11 million per year -- is needed to help balance the Met's $305 million operating budget, which registered a shortfall of about $10 million in its most recently completed fiscal year.