America’s Great Working-Class Colleges

David Leonhardt JAN. 18, 2017

The heyday of the colleges that serve America’s working class can often feel very long ago. It harks back to the mid-20th century, when City College of New York cost only a few hundred dollars a year and was known as the “Harvard of the proletariat.” Out West, California built an entire university system that was both accessible and excellent.

More recently, these universities have seemed to struggle, with unprepared students, squeezed budgets and high dropout rates. To some New Yorkers, “City College” is now mostly a byword for nostalgia.

It should not be.

Yes, the universities that educate students from modest backgrounds face big challenges, particularly state budget cuts. But many of them are performing much better than their new stereotype suggests. They remain deeply impressive institutions that continue to push many Americans into the middle class and beyond — many more, in fact, than elite colleges that receive far more attention.

Where does this optimistic conclusion come from? The most comprehensive study of college graduates yet conducted, based on millions of anonymous tax filings and financial-aid records. Published Wednesday, the study tracked students from nearly every college in the country (including those who failed to graduate), measuring their earnings years after they left campus. The paper is the latest in a burst of economicresearch made possible by the availability of huge data sets and powerful computers.

To take just one encouraging statistic: At City College, in Manhattan, 76 percent of students who enrolled in the late 1990s and came from families in the bottom fifth of the income distribution have ended up in the top three- fifths of the distribution. These students entered college poor. They left on their way to the middle class and often the upper middle class.

The equivalent number at the University of Texas, El Paso, is 71 percent. At California State University in Bakersfield, it’s 81 percent. At Stony Brook University, on Long Island, it’s 78 percent, and at Baruch College in Manhattan, it’s 79 percent. (You can look up data for any college here.)

“We are the engine of the ability to be socially mobile,” Baruch’s president, Mitchel B. Wallerstein, said. Most Baruch graduates, he added, are making more money than their parents as soon as they start their first post-college job.

I’ll admit that the new data surprised me. Years of reporting on higher education left me focused on the many problems at colleges that enroll large numbers of poor and middle-class students.

Those problems are real: The new study — by a team of economists led by Raj Chetty of Stanford — shows that many colleges indeed fail to serve their students well. Dropout rates are high, saddling students with debt but no degree. For-profit colleges perform the worst, and a significant number of public colleges also struggle. Even at the strong performers, too many students fall by the wayside. Improving higher education should be a national priority.

But the success stories are real, too, and they’re fairly common. As I thought about the new findings in light of the other evidence pointing to the value of education, they became less surprising. After all, the earnings gap between four-year college graduates and everyone else has soared in recent decades. The unemployment rate for college graduates today is a mere 2.5 percent.

Those college graduates have to come from somewhere, of course, and most of them are coming from campuses that look a lot less like Harvard or the University of Michigan than like City College or the University of Texas at El Paso. On these more typical campuses, students often work while they’re going to college. Some are military veterans, others learned English as a second language and others are in their mid-20s or 30s.

“There are a lot of people who would not got to college at all, and would not get an education at all, if they had to go through some selective criteria,” said Erik Pavia, a 2010 graduate of the University of Texas at El Paso, known as UTEP. “UTEP opens the doors to people from all walks of life.”

Pavia grew up in Canutillo, a poor neighborhood in El Paso, the son of a construction worker and house cleaner. He did well enough in high school to attend many colleges but — as frequently happens with low-income students — was not willing to leave home at age 18 for an unfamiliar world. “I just didn’t feel like I was ready to go out to college on my own,” he said. “So I decided to stay home and save money.”

After college, he went to law school, and today is a business manager at a technology start-up called Knotch. Twice a year, he returns to UTEP to teach an intensive two-week class on business and law. Pavia’s story is the classic story of the American dream.

Lower-income students who attend elite colleges fare even better on average than low-income students elsewhere — almost as well, in fact, as affluent students who attend elite colleges. But there aren’t very many students from modest backgrounds on elite campuses, noted John Friedman of Brown, one of the study’s authors. On several dozen of campuses, remarkably, fewer students hail from the entire bottom half of the income distribution than from the top 1 percent. (A separate article looks at elite colleges in more detail.)

“There is a real problem with the elite privates and flagship publics in not serving as many low-income students as they should,” John B. King Jr., President Obama’s education secretary, told me. “These institutions have a moral and educational responsibility.”

Because the elite colleges aren’t fulfilling that responsibility, working-class colleges have become vastly larger engines of social mobility. The new data shows, for example, that the City University of New York system propelled almost six times as many low-income students into the middle class and beyond as all eight Ivy League campuses, plus Duke, M.I.T., Stanford and Chicago, combined.

The research does come with one dark lining, however — one that should motivate anyone trying to think about how to affect government policy in the age of Donald Trump. The share of lower-income students at many public colleges has fallen somewhat over the last 15 years.

The reason is clear. State funding for higher education has plummeted. It’s down 19 percent per student, adjusted for inflation, since 2008, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The financial crisis pinched state budgets, and facing a pinch, some states decided education wasn’t a top priority.

“It’s really been a nightmare,” said Diana Natalicio, UTEP’s president and herself a first-generation college graduate. “The state does not recognize — and it’s not just in Texas — the importance that the investment in public education has for the economy and so many other things. Education was for me, and for many of the rest of us, the great opportunity creator.”

Obviously, colleges don’t deserve all the credit for their graduates’ success. But they do deserve a healthy portion of it. Other research that has tried to tease out the actual effects of higher education finds them to be large. And they’re not limited to money: Graduates are also happier and healthier. No wonder that virtually all affluent children go to college, and nearly all graduate.

The question is how to enable more working-class students do so. “It’s really the way democracy regenerates itself,” said Ted Mitchell, the under secretary of education. The new research shows that plenty of successful models exist, yet many of them are struggling to maintain the status quo, let alone grow. It’s true in red states as well as in many blue and purple states, and it’s a grave mistake.

There is a reason that City College and California’s universities evoke such warm nostalgia: They fulfilled the country’s highest ideals — of excellence, progress and opportunity. Many of those same colleges, and many others, still do. They deserve more than nostalgia.

Budget Cuts That Are Un-American

David Leonhardt JAN. 19, 2017

This article is part of the Opinion Today newsletter. You can sign up here to receive more briefings and a guide to the section daily in your inbox.

Alex Kosoglyadov has a story that sounds as if it’s out of New York’s glorious past.

His parents emigrated from Russia and raised him in a low-income neighborhood in Brooklyn. Alex did well in school and enrolled at Baruch College, part of the City University of New York.

There, he was surrounded by highly motivated students, many of them holding down jobs while they went to school and many whose first language was not English. It wasn’t easy, but there was an esprit de corps. “Everyone appreciated the grind it took to succeed,” he said.

And yet Kosoglyadov’s story doesn’t come from the past. He is 29 years old now and has a very nice job in Manhattan, as a director at the Bank of Montreal. He’s yet another success story from the City University of New York.

My latest column argues that these success stories are much more common than many people realize. A large new research project — analyzing millions of anonymous tax records — found that many colleges are boosting large numbers of low-income students into the middle class and beyond.

And they’re not Ivy League colleges. They’re public colleges, like CUNY, Cal State and several University of Texas campuses. For every poor student that the Ivy League launches into the middle class, CUNY alone launches more than six.

The most alarming part of the story is that state governments have in recent years been cutting the budgets of these engines of upward mobility. It’s hard to imagine a policy less in keeping with American values — or more damaging to the long-term health of the economy. I hope you’ll read the column.

In addition, you can also look up data from the study for any college in the country.

Big data suggests colleges are leveling the economic playing field January 19, 2017

Two students attend the same college. One is from a low-income background, while the other's family is in the top 20 percent of earners nationwide. When it comes to annual earnings in their mid- thirties, which student is likely to earn more?

A new study coauthored by John Friedman, associate professor of economics and international and public affairs at Brown University's Watson Institute, finds that those two graduates earn about the same—suggesting that colleges help level the economic playing field.

Friedman collaborates on the Equality of Opportunity Project, a team of researchers who use data to identify new pathways to economic success for lower- and middle-income students. The team's work is informing the national discussion on income inequality and how colleges and universities shape students' ability to move from one economic stratum to another.

Earlier today (Wednesday, Jan. 18), the New York Times featured the new study—titled "Mobility Report Cards: The Role of Colleges in Intergenerational Mobility"—in a column and interactive data feature.

Here, Friedman talks about Brown's impact on students' economic mobility—and particularly the University's success in moving students of all backgrounds into the top 20 or top 1 percent of the income distribution—and the broader findings of the new study.

What are mobility report cards, and what information do you use to generate them?

The mobility report cards are publicly available statistics on college graduates' earnings in their early thirties and their families' incomes in the five-year period when the kids are between 15 and 19 years old. Our main definition of college attendance is the college you attended for the most years between the ages of 18 and 22. We do this for each college in America and cover all college students from 1999 to 2013. Our data do not speak to race, ethnicity or first-generation status. We focus on family incomes and graduates' incomes.

Broadly speaking, what did you discover about access to colleges and economic outcomes for students?

Access to colleges varies substantially across the income distribution, with more students from the very top of the family income distribution attending Ivy League colleges than students from the bottom half of the family income distribution, despite the generous financial aid offered by these institutions. At the same time, though, students from low- and high-income families at each college have very similar earnings outcomes once they get into the labor force themselves. So in this sense, colleges successfully level the playing field across students with different socioeconomic backgrounds.

You measure two types of success, in which students from lower- or middle-income families move into either the top 20 percent or the top 1 percent by their mid-thirties. How does Brown do moving students into the top 20 percent?

Looking at Brown students born between 1980 and 1982 (who were in the graduating classes of 2002 to 2005), more than 70 percent of our students came from families in the top 20 percent of the income distribution (earning more than $111,000), and about 3 percent of our students came from the bottom 20 percent of the income distribution (earning less than $25,000). We focus on the fraction of the kids who get into the top 20 percent by earning more than $58,000 by their mid- thirties. At Brown, about 60 percent of students from the richest 20 percent of families make it into the top 20 percent, and about 55 percent of students from the poorest 20 percent of families also make it in the top 20 percent. We think that is a positive fact. Once you're at Brown, your family income is essentially not determinative for your outcomes or for predicting what your earnings will be.

What sort of mobility into the top 1 percent do you see at Brown?

Brown gets between 7 and 10 percent of its low-income students into the top 1 percent. This doesn't mean hedge fund managers—these are graduates who earning more than $200,000 annually by age 34. This could be a doctor, someone at a law firm or a consulting firm, or many other professional positions. This is a very high success rate—Brown and other Ivy League schools get students into the top 1 percent much more so than other types of schools with a larger share of students from poor families. We think that is broadly representative of the fact that Ivy League institutions and other elite private schools are doing something really extraordinary at the very top. What is a mobility rate? And what did you determine Brown's mobility rate to be?

We define a college's mobility rate as the fraction of its students who come from a family in the bottom fifth of the income distribution and end up in the top fifth. You can calculate this by multiplying the fraction of students from parents in the bottom fifth by the fraction of those students who make it themselves into the top fifth.

At Brown, we get about 3 percent of students from the bottom 20 percent, and about 55 percent of those students get into the top 20 percent, making our mobility rate 1.6 percent. As for getting students into the top 1 percent, Brown's rate is 0.20 percent. These numbers mean that, in every graduating class, about 25 students move from the bottom fifth to the top fifth, and three students move from the bottom fifth to the top 1 percent.

Which colleges and universities have the highest upward mobility rates?

We find that high-quality, mid-tier public universities are those with the highest mobility. To give you an example, the State University of New York at Stony Brook enrolls about five times as many students from low-income families compared to Brown. Sixteen percent of Stony Brook students come from the bottom 20 percent of the national income distribution, and half of those students then make it into the top 20 percent— making Stony Brook's mobility rate 8 percent. To put that into perspective, if Brown had a similar mobility rate, about 120 students from each graduating class would move from the bottom fifth to the top fifth. Other examples of similar outstanding schools that are potential engines of mobility are California State University, Los Angeles; the University of Texas at El Paso, and many campuses in the City University of New York system.

What sort of trends do you see over time?

At Brown, we see increasing economic diversity over time and a steady, smooth increase without any big jump at a discrete moment, meaning no single event or policy change had an outsized impact. For the mid-tier public schools like SUNY Stony Brook, or other schools that we have identified as engines for economic mobility, we have seen access rates falling, which is a potentially troubling trend. It may be that cutting state funding has made it more difficult for those schools to attract and support low-income students. These schools may also increasingly look to admit students from richer families who will pay full tuition. There are many other possibilities as well, but whatever it is, it's not a trend in the right direction. You would want these schools to be growing and access to be staying the same if not growing as well over time.

Does this study lay the groundwork for additional research?

This paper is really only the first step. We want to try to look at how these data respond to different policies and see if we can partner with various schools to look at what they are doing. With schools like those in the CUNY system, for example, you can ask if what they are doing is scalable. Are they doing a great job at educating the kids they have, or are they particularly adept at finding super- smart low-income kids who didn't have great test scores or grades, so perhaps they couldn't (for those or other reasons) get into more selective Ivy League schools? Sorting those questions out requires yet more data.

A Passport Stamp Gives Dreamers Hope as the Trump Era Looms By LIZ ROBBINS JAN. 18, 2017

When the customs agent at Kennedy International Airport stamped Jenifer Guzman Gonzalez’s Mexican passport on Monday, Ms. Guzman was too anxious to look at it.

Back at her family’s apartment in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, Ms. Guzman started crying as she flipped to Page 5.

“PAROLED,” read the blue-ink stamp from the United States Department of Homeland Security. On the line under the word “Purpose” was the acronym: “DACA.”

“I didn’t want to look at it until I got home to savor the moment,” she said.

Ms. Guzman came from Mexico to New York at age 4, arriving by night hidden in a van. Now 21 and a sophomore at Hunter College, she had joined 66 others covered by DACA, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, on a six- day trip to her homeland organized by the City University of New York. The 2012 federal program allows young, undocumented immigrants to remain in the United States temporarily and work legally. It also enables them to apply to travel abroad for humanitarian, educational or employment reasons, and then re-enter the United States, a benefit known as “advance parole.”

The stamp in her passport is proof that Ms. Guzman has entered the country legally, which she and others like her are hoping could one day be inoculation against whatever actions Donald J. Trump takes against undocumented immigrants after his inauguration on Friday. He has vowed to end the DACA program.

While DACA may be fleeting, the stamp is forever, and for some, it might offer a small future benefit as well: If Ms. Guzman were ever to apply for a green card after marrying an American citizen, she would not have to return to Mexico and risk being turned down, as most immigrants who entered the country illegally currently must do. Adjusting her legal status would be far easier. “There’s not a rush to do anything right now,” Ms. Guzman said on Tuesday, after returning from a conference that also allowed her to visit relatives she left behind in Mexico. Marriage is not on the table. “Just seeing my family was enough for me.”

The conference she attended was arranged by the Jaime Lucero Mexican Studies Institute at Lehman College, which teamed up with top universities in Mexico City and Puebla. A three-day seminar focused on migration between the United States and Mexico, bringing in the experiences of the DACA students, known as Dreamers. Carlos Menchaca, the first Mexican- American on the New York City Council, also participated. Students also had two days to visit with family.

To go on the trip, students had to first apply for advance parole. CUNY Citizenship Now, a nonprofit legal organization, helped expedite the applications; since November, Citizenship Now has helped 122 students with DACA get this benefit. Nearly 300 people across the country applied for CUNY’s program, spurred by their fear that the window of opportunity would close.

Demand has increased at schools in California, too. Armando Vazquez- Ramos, a professor at California State University, Long Beach, who runs the California-Mexico Studies Center, said he led one of the first DACA class programs to Mexico in 2015. He recently returned from Mexico with 26 students who took a three-week course. High interest led Cal State to expand its program to include students from Northern California and out of state.

But critics of DACA see universities as helping to exploit the law. “It’s a way of laundering the status of these illegal immigrants,” said Mark Krikorian, the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington research institute that supports tighter controls on immigration. “Already giving them work permits and Social Security numbers is a partial laundering of their status, and giving them advance parole, to go out and come back, it’s one more step along the road to a full amnesty.”

Of the estimated 713,300 individuals covered by the DACA program through Dec. 31, 2015, 22,340 have been approved for advance parole. The immigration agency said those are the most updated statistics.

Days after the presidential election, Israel Sanchez applied for a separate trip run by a City College of New York education professor, Tatyana Kleyn. That class spent two weeks in Oaxaca, Mexico.

“I just saw it as me taking a step and doing something, instead of just waiting to see what can happen,” said Mr. Sanchez, 20, a Baruch College student who also works for City Councilman Ritchie Torres in the Bronx. He came to New York as a 2-year-old. “I knew that with advance parole, it could open options down the road.” Dr. Kleyn’s long-scheduled course could accommodate only 18 students, and had to turn away applicants. José Higuera López, the interim director of the CUNY Mexican Studies Institute, said that City University wanted to find a way to meet the demand. So in November, he devised the curriculum, prepared an application with an essay asking why students wanted to attend and enlisted CUNY Citizenship Now to help with government approval.

The intent was to get students to reconnect with their home country, he said. “We never focused on the advance parole. For us it was, we needed to take them just in case there was no opportunity later on.”

The program was organized in such a frenzy in the weeks after the election that it received funding, from an outside nonprofit organization, only in the second week of December, Mr. Higuera said. The grant covered travel, lodging and government application fees for students, while the State Government of Puebla also offered financial assistance.

Alumni from CUNY were allowed to participate, too. Ivan Guzman, 35, who graduated from Baruch College with a degree in finance, recently opened a restaurant and works at the Mexican Consulate in New York advising immigrants on starting businesses. He had not been back to Mexico for 20 years. He was unsettled by the trip at first.

“For the most part, if you’ve lived here undocumented, you don’t feel like you belong here,” Mr. Guzman said, referring to New York. “And once you go back, you don’t belong there, either.”

Ms. Guzman, who is no relation, felt the same way. “There’s this saying: ‘Neither from here, nor from there,’” she said. But one of the professors who went along on the trip, Alexandra Délano from the New School in New York, urged the students to try another, more positive interpretation: “From here and from there.”

Ms. Guzman liked that. Especially when she finally admired her passport and saw that her entry stamps were on the same page, the United States stamp on top of the Mexican one.

“Yes, I’m from here and I’m from there,” she said. “Even though I am not a U.S. citizen or resident, I was allowed back in because this is my home.”

Cuomo proposes selling CUNY building to 'offset' state support By CONOR SKELDING

01/19/17 05:35 AM EST Gov. Andrew Cuomo's executive budget calls for selling a building used by the City University of New York to "offset" a reduction in operating funds for the system's senior colleges.

The building, at 450 West 41st Street, used to house Hunter College's Master of Fine Arts program. The college still uses it, but the state owns it.

"The expected sale of certain CUNY capital assets will result in available resources to partially offset State support for CUNY," the governor's financial plan stated. The plan, accordingly, includes a 5.2 reduction in state operating support for CUNY's senior colleges: from $1.21 billion in the 2017 fiscal year to $1.14 billion in the proposed 2018 fiscal year, down $63 million. If the state sells the building, up to $60 million of the sale's proceeds may be used to support senior colleges, provided that they "shall reduce the state's net operating expense liability ... in an equal amount," according to the governor's draft Education, Labor and Family Assistance Bill.

The state may also provide CUNY with "an alternative amount [of the proceeds] as determined by the director of the budget." The state budget director, Robert Mujica, also is a gubernatorial appointee to CUNY's board. According to the draft bill, the state could sell other CUNY property "not limited" to the Hunter building.

Theoretically, this would not have a net effect on CUNY's FY2018 funding: money provided by general appropriations would instead by funded by a one-time sale of a building. Accordingly, the summary of senior college funding in the briefing book does not include the 5.2 percent reduction in the financial plan, but a 2.5 percent increase.

"If the asset is sold, the state would reinvest the funds into the CUNY system," Cuomo press secretary Dani Lever said in a statement. CUNY's faculty union expressed doubt about the proposal.

"We are disappointed that the proposed Executive Budget appears to decrease public investment in CUNY's senior colleges and appears to propose the sale of CUNY assets to 'partially offset State support for CUNY.' We await the details of the plan," the Professional Staff Congress said in a statement.

A Hunter College spokeswoman deferred comment on the building to CUNY's central administration, which released a statement from chancellor James Milliken that did not address the building's sale.

"Governor Cuomo’s FY 2018 Executive Budget proposes significant investment in The City University of New York," Milliken said in the statement, which praised Cuomo's proposed Excelsior Scholarship Program among other proposals.

Fordham bans Students for Justice in Palestine

Citing concerns that Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) would be too “polarizing” for the campus to tolerate, Fordham University denied status to a group of students seeking to establish an SJP club. Palestine Legal and the Center for Constitutional Rights wrote Fordham today to challenge the decision as a violation of free speech and civil rights. Fordham denied the club after delaying students’ application for over one year, and after repeated questioning about their support for boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) and whether they would work with the Israel lobby group J Street. There is no appeal.

“My own university told me I can’t share my culture and history like other students because I’m a Palestinian who believes in Palestinian freedom,” said Ahmad Awad, whose family is originally from the West Bank, and who hoped to be president of SJP. “I just graduated last month, so I’ll never have that chance.”

Palestine Legal’s letter explains that when Fordham censored SJP, it violated free speech and academic freedom guarantees. It also states:

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin by institutions that receive federal funding. A university may lose its federal funding if it treats a student differently because of his/her national origin, resulting in a denial of a student’s educational activities.

In a letter to students denying the club status, Dean Keith Eldredge expressed concern that SJP’s “sole purpose is advocating political goals of a specific group,” that the group would lead to “polarization” and that “the call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions of Israel presents a barrier to open dialogue.”

“No one’s more polarizing than president-elect Trump, but Fordham did not ban the College Republicans,” said Palestine Legal staff attorney Radhika Sainath. “In singling out a group dedicated to Palestinian rights for censorship, Fordham makes a mockery of its supposed commitment to freedom of inquiry and critical thinking.”

The letter notes other political and cultural groups at Fordham that are granted associational status including the Rainbow Alliance, Women in STEM and African-American, Asian-Pacific Islander, French, Greek, Irish, Italian, Korean, German, Latino, Polish and South Asian clubs.

This incident epitomizes the well-documented and widespread suppression of Palestinian rights advocacy across the country. Palestine Legal and the Center for Constitutional Rights documented hundreds of such incidents in a report released in 2015, “The Palestine Exception to Free Speech: A Movement Under Attack in the U.S.”

Fordham’s decision comes after mounting pressure to censor SJP’s criticism of Israeli policy. Last year the New York state senate voted to cut $485 million dollars in funding to the City University of New York (CUNY) after the Zionist Organization of America falsely accused CUNY of tolerating antisemitic activity by SJP, and demanded that CUNY ban SJP from all campuses. The accusations against SJP were rebuked after a former federal judge and prosecutor conducted a 6-month independent investigation, which determined it was a “mistake” to blame SJP.

Palestine Legal has responded to over 600 such incidents since January 2014, the vast majority of which targeted students and scholars. “As we celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. and the achievements of the civil rights movement through boycotts, sit-ins, and marches, and as we usher in a president who threatens to crush dissent, we must all be vigilant in safeguarding our right to come together to seek change,” said Maria LaHood, Deputy Legal Director at the Center for Constitutional Rights. “If Fordham is truly committed to fostering learning and leadership, it must allow its students to come together to seek justice for Palestine, or find itself on the wrong side of history.”

NEW YORK GOVERNOR PROPOSES MAJOR PLAN TO TACKLE COLLEGE TUITION

On January 3, 2017, Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York announced the Excelsior Scholarship, a proposal that would provide free tuition at the City University of New York (CUNY) and the State University of New York (SUNY) for qualifying students from families making less than $125,000 per year (comprising 80% of New York households). The proposal, if passed, would help set new expectations that a college education should not be a life debt sentence.

Senator Bernie Sanders was a featured guest at Cuomo’s Excelsior Scholarship announcement, a clear reminder of the important role that the left-wing senator continues to play after his 2016 presidential campaign. Sanders tapped into the enormous youth radicalization that has taken hold since the financial crash in 2008, with students and young workers fighting back against the epidemic of high college costs, massive student debt, and low-wage work. Sanders’ campaign proposals to make college free and forgive student debt made him the most popular presidential candidate among voters under 30, receiving over 2 million more votes during the primaries than either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump.

It is clear from the Excelsior Scholarship announcement that Cuomo, widely recognized as positioning for a presidential run in 2020, is drawing lessons from Hillary Clinton’s defeat and looking to tap into the national mood clamoring for policies that benefit the working class and youth. As promising as the Excelsior Scholarship proposal is, however, it is not “revolutionary,” as Senator Bernie Sanders claimed at the announcement. The CUNY system was completely free until 1976, yet Cuomo’s proposal falls far short of a return to free tuition. The scholarship would only fill the gap between existing student aid and tuition, meaning that poorer students already receiving more aid would reap fewer benefits: for example, there’s no additional stipend for low-income students to receive support for housing or books. Additionally, under the guise of incentivizing on-time graduation, the scholarship only applies to full-time students, ignoring students whose financial and personal responsibilities prevent them from attending college full-time. Unsurprisingly, the scholarship provides nothing for the thousands of undocumented students at CUNY and SUNY. Politically, for the proposal to become law, Gov. Cuomo must win votes from the State Legislature. The New York State Senate includes powerful Republicans whom Cuomo has shown a willingness to please by discarding or watering-down progressive proposals. And Cuomo has actually been a steadfast opponent of public universities for much of his term: just last year, he proposed a budget cut of $400,000 to CUNY, despite the state and the city of New York both reporting a budget surplus. Today, total public funding of CUNY is at an all-time low, with tuition-paying students making up the difference.

Strategy to Win

While Cuomo’s proposed reform should be welcomed despite its shortcomings, students should also organize independently of Cuomo and keep up the pressure in the streets and on elected officials to push for even more ambitious reforms. Cuomo’s previous shape-shifting on public education means that working class students can’t rely on him or the establishment Democratic machine he represents. In addition, labor unions like the Professional Staff Congress, Civil Service Employees Association, and graduate students who are organizing new unions can play a critical role helping support and build these efforts. Beyond New York, we should spread the movement for more scholarships, lower tuition and debt relief across every state in the country. The millions of young people who fueled Sanders’ historic election campaign are responsible for the newfound attention on proposals for free education and student debt forgiveness. Socialist Students, a student-led initiative of Socialist Alternative, calls for rebuilding a fighting student movement as an independent force to demand massive tax increases on Wall Street and the super rich to provide quality, free public higher education for all, including money for textbooks and housing — two of the biggest costs for students. We also oppose funding free education on the backs of instructors, grad students, and campus workers who deserve living wage jobs and decent union contracts. Ultimately, we need an education system geared to the needs of 99%, not the 1%: putting the needs of educators and students over the needs of a capitalist, for-profit education system.

Candidate Cuomo’s Bogus Education Promises

01/19/2017 05:54 am ET

Alan Singer Social studies educator, Donald Trump has not been sworn in yet, but New York’s Governor Andrew Cuomo is already busy running around the state promoting himself as the liberal Democratic candidate for President in 2020. He may even have Bernie Sanders fooled. Sanders appeared at a rally with Cuomo where the Governor announced his plan for free tuition at the State University. Cuomo called his proposal “a wake-up call to this nation.” “If you want to offer everyone a fair shot, you have to get up to date and say, ‘What high school was 75 years ago, college is today.’”

I attended the City College of New York in the 1960s when it was tuition free and I am a strong advocate of free tuition in public universities. But of course, there are a number of “catches” in the Cuomo plan. Free is not free. Tuition is not being eliminated. Cuomo only pledges to cover the remaining cost of tuition for lower-income students after other state and federal scholarship money is gone. They would also have to be enrolled in college full-time to qualify, which would eliminate part-time students who have to work to support themselves and their families while attending college. The Cuomo plan does not help with living expenses. Every year the state legislature would end up debating who is poor enough to qualify for the tuition support supplements. Why not just eliminate tuition altogether and fund the State and City universities through tax dollars?

There is also concern that Cuomo will not support sufficient funding so the public colleges can provide adequate academic support for students graduating from high school not yet ready to do college level work. An estimated half of New York City’s high school graduates who enter college need some form of academic remediation. Up until know Cuomo’s budget allocations have been very stingy with state funding for the State University and the City University of New York (CUNY).

According to Fran Clark, a spokesperson for the union representing CUNY faculty and staff, last year, Cuomo initially demanded that New York City take over $485 million of CUNY’s funding costs and he has under-funding the public university network for years. The New York Times estimated that in 2015, CUNY faced a $51 million budget shortfall because of Cuomo.

This year Cuomo is proposing to increase state aid to schools by about one billion dollars, far less than the $2.1 billion requested by the state’s Board of Regents, its educational policymaking body, and even further less than the state owes poorer school districts as the result of a law suit. Ten years after a settlement was reached, and five years Cuomo’s administrations, poorer districts are still being shorted $3.9 billion they are entitled to under the settlement. Cuomo has promised the city of Buffalo a $13.6 million increase in state aid over the previous year. But school officials are still waiting for the $91 million the district is owed from the 2006 court ruling.

The Board of Regents requested a $1.47 billion increase in foundation aid to poorer school districts this year and a total of $4.3 billion over the next three years. Cuomo is only offering poorer school districts Cuomo’s $428 million in “foundation aid.” Billy Easton, executive director of the Alliance for Quality Education, charges Cuomo has “talked about the fact that there are two public school systems, one for the rich and one for the poor. This just keeps that rolling right along.”

Jasmine Gripper, the legislative director for the Alliance for Quality Education, highlighted a section of the Governor’s proposed budget that says “For the 2018-2019 school year and thereafter, districts shall be eligible for Foundation Aid equal to the amount of Foundation Aid such districts received in the 2017-2018 school year,” which would mean no further increases. Gripper called this budget insert a “ direct assault on communities of color and those living in poverty.” Future educational aid would be based on “political horse trading instead of students’ educational needs.”

Taking a page from Donald Trump’s campaign playbook, candidate Cuomo also promises to cut taxes. However New York State faces $3.5 billion budget deficit this year. The situation for education funding is even worse because Cuomo refuses to challenge renege Democrats siding with the Republican Party in the State Senate.

At a time when Democrats on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee are challenging Donald Trump’s nomination of Betsy “Amway” DeVos as Secretary of Education because she champions charter schools, vouchers, and channeling public money to private and religious schools, Andrew Cuomo endorsed the similar policies. He has promoted increasing the number of charter schools over local opposition and backdoor vouchers via tax credits for “donations” to religious schools. He has also pushed high-stakes testing and using student scores to evaluate teachers. But maybe all this was just last week before he launched his presidential campaign. The Democratic Party can certainly do better than Andrew Cuomo. Meanwhile, New York advocates for public education eagerly await learning how he will pull off his budgetary magic trick.

Cuomo looks to sell Hell’s Kitchen CUNY property to fill budget gap 170K sf building at 450 West 41st St. houses Hunter’s fine arts program January 19, 2017 09:00AM Governor Andrew Cuomo wants to sell a 170,000-square-foot building used by the City University of New York in Hell’s Kitchen to help “offset” a reduction in CUNY funding in his proposed budget.

The six-story building at 450 West 41st Street, between Ninth and 10th avenues, is used to house Hunter College’s Master of Fine Arts program, Politico reported.

Cuomo wants to sell the property in order to help offset a 5.2-percent reduction in state funding in his preliminary budget for CUNY’s senior colleges, from $1.21 billion in fiscal year 2017 to $1.14 billion in fiscal year 2018, a reduction of $63 million.

If the state sells the building, as much as $60 million of the sale’s proceeds could go to senior colleges, provided that they “shall reduce the state’s net operating expense liability … in an equal amount.”

“The expected sale of certain CUNY capital assets will result in available resources to partially offset State support for CUNY,” according to the governor’s financial plan.

The property sits next to Covenant House New York, a shelter for homeless youth that the New York City Economic Development Corporation proposed to sell to developers last spring.

Gary Barnett’s 52-story, 478-unit rental building at 555 10th Avenue sits across the street. [Politico] – Rich Bockmann

Cuomo Announces Steps to Address Corruption In State Contracting Amid Scandal

By Will Bredderman • 01/18/17 10:48am

Gov. Andrew Cuomo used part of his budget address to the press last night to reveal a plan to prevent ethical improprieties involving companies seeking business with the state—months after a pair of his top lieutenants and several executives from companies that donated to his campaign got indicted on charges of bid-rigging and bribery. The governor announced that he would seek an array of good government reforms from the State Legislature, a number of them familiar: preventing donors from circumventing contribution caps through the creation of shell limited liability corporations; enhancing personal financial disclosures; creating a public financing system; and instating constitutional amendments to establish term limits for Albany lawmakers (though not Cuomo and the current class of legislators), extend the legislative session from six months to year-round and ban outside income. He also called for legislation a “blackout period” that would prevent companies that have responded to a state request-for-proposal from donating to politicians, and the recipients of contracts from contributing to a campaign for half a year afterward. This proposal appears to acknowledgment of the concerns raised after the arrest last September of top figures at two construction firms that both received hefty deals for economic redevelopment projects and also gave heavily to his re-election bid.

“Once an RFP goes out, a bidder to the RFP cannot make a political contribution. And the award winner cannot make a contribution for six months following,” Cuomo said. In September, Cuomo bitterly rejected the Observer’s suggestion that he stop taking campaign money from state contractors. But in November 2016, he announced would impose a “blackout period” like the one he described yesterday on his own political operation and on the state Democratic Party, which he controls—and urged other elected leaders to do the same. His remarks yesterday appear to be his first call to make that policy law.

The governor also called for granting the state inspector general’s office oversight of nonprofit organizations under the control of the State University of New York and City University of New York systems. Such groups currently fall outside the IG’s purview.

“The time has passed to expand the authority of the state inspector general who does SUNY and CUNY to the not-for-profits that are under SUNY and CUNY, which is where we’ve had a lot of issues. And the IG does not now have authority to those not- for-profits,” Cuomo said.

By “a lot of issues” Cuomo seems to have meant the debacle unfolding from his signature economic development initiatives. The governor, who effectively controls the state’s public college system through its board of trustees, ran his major upstate renewal programs—most importantly the massive “Buffalo Billion”—through SUNY Polytechnic Institute and its now-indicted president Alain Kaloyeros, who stepped down after his arrest last year.

Under the governor’s direction, Kaloyeros established real estate nonprofits that bought up land and contracted with private companies to build new facilities on the property: the Fort Schuyler Management Corporation in Western New York and the Fuller Road Management Corporation in Albany. U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara has charged that Kaloyeros colluded with leaders of the firm LPCiminelli to rig construction contract bidding process at Fort Schuyler, while state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has alleged the nanotechnology guru did the same Columbia Development through Fuller Road.

All involved have pleaded not guilty.

Both LPCiminelli and Columbia Development have given lavishly to the governor’s campaigns. Cuomo’s initial reaction to the fiasco was to transfer the operation of the Buffalo Billion program to the New York State Economic Development Corporation, another entity he controls. He has repeatedly denied any knowledge of wrongdoing in his notoriously micromanaged administration.

The governor and State Legislature colluded in 2011 to prevent State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli from reviewing contracts given out through SUNY, asserting that the scrutiny would bog down the process.

In keeping with Cuomo’s habit of consolidating power in his own branch of government, the state inspector general is not a truly independent overseer, unlike the state comptroller’s office. Cuomo appointed IG Catherine Leahy Scott to her post in 2013, and she previously served under him while he was state attorney general. The governor also called for an inspector general of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey—the bi-state entity implicated in the Bridgegate scandal, which found two top aides to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie convicted for conspiring to close lanes on the George Washington Bridge in an act of political retribution. Given the binary structure of the authority, however, the creation of such an ombudsman would likely require the support of officials in the Garden State—who Cuomo has recently dueled with over plans to raze and rebuild the Port Authority Bus Terminal and refurbish LaGuardia Airport.

New hope for Astoria’s Hallets Point as Cuomo pushes 421-a replacement

Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Sunday a push for legislation to create a new housing program that will replace the 421-a tax abatement to allow developers to move forward with mega-developments such as the Hallets Point project in Astoria.

The Durst Organization scaled back that $1.5 billion complex — which would have consisted of five buildings with 2,400 apartments, 484 of them affordable — to just one building after the 421-a program was allowed to expire last January.

The Real Estate Board of New York and the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York reached a deal in November that expands the production of affordable housing and provides fair wages for construction workers. Under Cuomo’s new “Affordable New York” housing program, developers of new residential projects with 300 or more units in certain areas of Queens, Brooklyn and Manhattan would be eligible for a full property-tax abatement for 35 years, provided they commit a certain number of rental units to remain affordable for 40 years, and pay construction workers an enhanced average wage and benefits.

“This agreement will help fulfill the real need for more affordable housing in New York City while recognizing the work of the employees who build them,” Cuomo said. “This agreement will expand housing opportunities for low-income individuals by lowering income eligibility requirements, and extend affordability for projects created with 421-a for an additional five years.”

The governor urged the state Legislature to approve his “Affordable New York” program and to unlock $2 billion in funds for his affordable housing program. The loss of 421-a has slowed development in the city after the governor shot down a deal brokered by Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2015.

“I do think the absence of 421-a has been unhelpful to say the least,” de Blasio said. “I don’t think it has been critical, in the sense of a lot of great work continues to be done, and a lot was already in the pipeline, but we need it, and I am increasingly optimistic that it will be done soon.”

Meanwhile, Cuomo outlined his 2018 Executive Budget in Albany Tuesday night. He said his $152-billion spending plan is designed to strengthen the middle class while reducing taxes and making smart investments in New York’s future. It would begin a middle-class tax cut for 6 million New Yorkers — saving households $250 on average next year and $700 annually when fully implemented — while extending the tax rate on millionaires, with a surcharge on individuals making more than $1 million annually, affecting 45,000 taxpayers, 50 percent of whom are non-residents.

“So, our prime focus this year is, I’m addressing the problems of the middle class, and all of the problems with the middle class,” Cuomo said. “We want to cut income taxes for the middle class, reduce property taxes for the middle class, make college affordable, which is always the dream that you will be able to send your child to college and that dream has become more and more of illusion for too many New York and American families.”

Cuomo’s budget invests $163 million to make college tuition free for middle-class families at SUNY and CUNY schools, and includes a $1 billion increase in aid to elementary schools.

His plan would also allow for beer and wine sales in movie theaters, the privatization of horse racing at Belmont, Aqueduct, and Saratoga and $260 million to help non-profit social services organizations meet payroll in light of the state’s rising minimum wage. Cuomo also mentioned his big-ticket infrastructure items such as the redevelopment of LaGuardia and JFK airports. And then he mentioned this:

“We’re illuminating all of the bridges in New York City with different colored lights and the bridges can then be coordinated and choreographed to music,” Cuomo said. “So literally you’ll have bridges all across the New York City area that are choreographed. Nothing like this has been done on the planet.”

Reach reporter Bill Parry by e-mail at [email protected] or by phone at (718) 260–4538.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s budget: Major programs

Updated January 18, 2017 8:41 PM

By Newsday Staff

Funding in Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s proposed 2017 state budget for major programs and initiatives:

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Nearly $1.24 billion to the state Department of Environmental Conservation — an increase of $228 million from last year.

The increase is due to a boost in capital spending as well as $2 billion from a proposed clean water infrastructure fund. If approved by the State Legislature, the clean water funding will be bonded and spread out over five years. The plan also includes $300 million for the Environmental Protection Fund, which pays for open space, climate change, solid waste and parks and recreation programming and initiatives. The same amount was allocated last year.

The spending plan calls for $70 million, up from $40 million last year, for a capital infrastructure program called Adventure NY intended to improve access to state land, update campgrounds and upgrade the DEC’s recreational facilities.

The clean water infrastructure plan, the most ambitious environmental initiative in the budget, will help local governments improve wastewater infrastructure, as well as fund treatment to remove contaminants from drinking water.

In a budget briefing for the press, Cuomo said contaminants were especially troublesome in upstate New York and on Long Island. “We want to get ahead of that crisis,” he said.

The budget recommends keeping the full-time equivalent of 2,946 DEC employees — the same as last year — although some forest and land positions will be added, budget documents show.

— Emily C. Dooley

TRANSPORTATION @Newsday

The budget promises funding for several new transportation initiatives Cuomo proposes, including improvements to 16 Long Island Rail Road stations and new rail links to two destinations in Suffolk County.

The LIRR station renovations would cost $80 million — $45 million from the state and $35 million from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The budget also commits a total of $80 million to “improve system connectivity” at Long Island MacArthur Airport in Ronkonkoma and Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton.

Overall, Cuomo’s budget increases transportation spending by 7.1 percent — to $9.26 billion from $8.65 billion last year. That includes increases of $265 million for the MTA and $326 million for the State Department of Transportation.

Funding for local roads projects through the state’s Consolidated Highway Improvement Programs remains steady at $478 million. Transit operating aid would be about $5 billion — an increase of 0.6 percent. The MTA would get $4.5 billion of that, while other transit systems in the state, including Nassau’s NICE Bus and Suffolk County Transit, would split the remaining $502 million.

The budget also appropriates $1.5 billion toward the state’s $8.5 billion commitment to the MTA’s 5-year capital plan, which funds major infrastructure projects such as the LIRR’s construction of a second track between Farmingdale and Ronkonkoma. That plan is expected to be amended later this year to include funding for Cuomo’s proposal to build a third track between Floral Park and Hicksville.

— Alfonso Castillo

HIGHER EDUCATION

Higher education spending would rise by $383 million to $7.45 billion, or 5.4 percent.

State universities and colleges — including Stony Brook University, Farmingdale State College and SUNY Old Westbury — would receive a total increase of $153 million, or 5.7 percent, in general fund appropriations. The state would spend $21 million less, or 2.7 percent, on two-year schools such as Nassau Community College and Suffolk County Community College.

The Higher Education Services Corporation, which runs the state’s Tuition Assistance Program, would get an increase of $152 million (14.9 percent), to $1.17 billion.

Cuomo also wants to renew a plan that limits resident tuition increases at SUNY and CUNY institutions to no more than $250 per year for the next five years. He also asks lawmakers to pass the DREAM Act, to make students who are immigrants without documentation eligible for state financial aid.

Earlier this month, Cuomo proposed the Excelsior Scholarship program, a supplemental financial aid program to pay the tuition of full-time students from families earning up to $125,000 annually. Once fully phased in over two years, the program would cost $163 million annually, according to the budget proposal.

— Candice Ferrette

ENERGY

The budget would extend the Alternative Fuels Property and Electric Vehicle Recharging Property Credit for five years, but lists no cost for the extension.

The budget also calls on the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority to provide $360 million to “leverage $1 billion in private sector investment” in 11 large-scale renewable energy projects across the state, including wind, solar energy, fuel cells and hydroelectric power. The spending plan doesn’t list specific projects. But it calls the $360 million the “largest-single state investment at one time,” and an increase of $210 million over previous awards.

The budget also calls for following through on a previously disclosed plan to end the state’s Temporary Utility Assessment on March 31, for statewide ratepayer savings of $122 million.

— Mark Harrington

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Cuomo would aid biotechnology startups, drugmakers and producers of medical devices with $650 million in tax breaks and grants over five years.

He said the initiative seeks to commercialize inventions from research institutions such as Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and Brookhaven National Laboratory. State funds would be matched by at least $100 million from the private sector.

The proposal comes as “Long Island is seeking to grow its life sciences industries and create a larger biotech economy,” Kevin Law, president and CEO of the Long Island Association business group, said Wednesday.

Law also welcomed Cuomo’s request for another $100 million for downtown redevelopment. Last year, Westbury beat out 20 local communities to win $10 million in the first $100-million Downtown Revitalization Initiative competition.

Cuomo wants $750 million for state tax credits and grants that would be distributed in the seventh Regional Economic Development Councils competition. The Long Island council has secured $486.5 million for 569 projects since being established in 2011. Cuomo also has proposed $70 million for tourism promotions and an expanded “Buy American” program for state contracts that he said on Tuesday would help manufacturing and construction companies.

— James T. Madore

Trump’s Personnel Challenge

E. S. Savas January 18, 2017

An incoming president’s most important task is staffing his administration with allies who understand and share his policies, and are dependably loyal. Because of his surprise victory, President-elect Donald Trump risks repeating the staffing mistakes that hindered President Richard Nixon’s first term. It isn’t too late to adopt at least part of President Ronald Reagan’s successful approach.

The president must appoint the secretaries, deputy secretaries, undersecretaries, and assistant secretaries of cabinet-level agencies, and the administrators of major sub- cabinet agencies such as the Office of Management and Budget and the Environmental Protection Agency. Many more lower-level positons must be filled in order for the executive branch to function. The total number of appointees has swollen from about 2,000 during the Nixon and Reagan years to about 4,000 today.

Ask anyone who has participated in a presidential transition: the 70-odd days between election and inauguration pass in a flash. Advisers urged Nixon during his tough battle against Hubert Humphrey in 1968 to identify possible appointees before the election. He initially rejected the advice, arguing that it was better to pick staff when—and if— he won. Eventually, however, Nixon authorized a modest effort to come up with names. According to campaign insider Martin Anderson, the search yielded no useful candidates. After his victory, Nixon and his kitchen cabinet came up with suggestions for different posts. They identified nominees for the cabinet secretaries and some subcabinet positions, but ran out of time and mostly left it up to the nominees themselves to select their subordinates. The result was an incoherent administration; the numerous lower-level appointees included Democrats and independents with a wide range of non-Nixonian policy positions.

“Nixon lost his opportunity to govern before he started,” said Anderson, who also served Reagan. Unlike Nixon, Reagan accepted the idea of planning for his administration prior to winning the election. Lists of qualified candidates were in hand by Election Day, and Reagan’s White House Office of Personnel kept tight control over all the appointments. Seven months before the 1980 election, I received a letter from a campaign official, John McClaughry, asking me to send along articles I’d written on privatization. “I would like to see you as an assistant secretary of HUD under President Reagan,” read the final sentence of his letter. Two days after the election, I was called to Washington and appointed to that post.

When Reagan took office, many incumbent political appointees lost their jobs. Counselor to the president Edwin Meese organized an extensive briefing program to bring the secretary-designees up to speed on the departments they were taking over. They were also briefed on Reagan’s policies and priorities concerning their particular agency’s policy portfolio. The result was a coherent administration that understood and shared the president’s outlook and priorities.

President-elect Trump, in a more organized campaign, might have followed this part of Reagan’s strategy and avoided Nixon’s profound mistake of ceding control of his appointments. Trump’s energetic start has produced impressive, strong-minded nominees. Some of his picks, however, have already strayed from the policies outlined by their new boss. It remains to be seen how Trump handles these defections.

A second element of Reagan’s successful management of the executive branch was his consistent ability to minimize the drag placed on his agenda by the so-called Iron Triangle. A perpetual hazard for new administrations, the Iron Triangle consists of (1) the permanent employees of a department or agency; (2) the congressional committees with a stake in the growth of—and deference to—a corresponding executive department or agency; (3) the department or agency’s constituents—for example, the farmers, farm organizations, and lobbyists who do business with the Department of Agriculture. Cabinet departments are sprawling bureaucracies with a variety of employees. Some civil servants can serve effectively under different presidents. But many tenured “lifers” have their own views and can influence, delay, subvert, and otherwise throw sand in a new government’s gears. The pressure is tremendous, and presidential appointees are often captured by the Iron Triangle.

Early in his administration, Reagan held frequent cabinet meetings, sometimes two or three a week, the principal purpose of which was to acclimate the members of his cabinet to the idea that they worked for the president, not for the Iron Triangle. By coming so frequently to the White House, Reagan’s appointees bonded with their peers—and with the president. If he is to avoid the threat to his agenda posed by the Iron Triangle, Trump should follow Reagan’s lead.

E. S. Savas served as an assistant secretary of HUD under President Reagan and is a Presidential Professor at Baruch College of the City University of New York.

3 Reasons Gen Z Might Make a Huge Financial Mistake

Urooj is a first generation college student at Hunter College from Brooklyn New York. She’s studying to hopefully pursue a graduate degree in microbiology. She almost didn’t make it to her first semester, a trend known as Summer Melt, because she didn’t have any help navigating the complex process of paying for college.

Attending college is not cheap. For the 2014-2015 academic year, families spent an average of $24,164, almost $100,000 for a four year undergraduate public university degree. This represents a 16% increase from the previous year. For private college, where 20% of full- time undergraduates study the sticker price average was up approximately 3.4% to $47,831 a year, almost $200,000 for a four year degree.

Given the financial burden of college, it is an absolute disaster that 30% of students who take out loans for college end up dropping out without a degree.

Here’s why thousands of students across the country are in the same unguided position as Urooj and set to make the biggest financial mistake of their lives.

College Counselors are Overextended

Urooj is a graduate of Midwood Public High School which was the featured school in a New York Times story covering the shortage of college counselors. Last year, seniors at at Midwood had access to two college counselors, which means a caseload of 500+ students per counselor.

Urooj never got a meeting with either counselor. She notes, “at the time I was applying for college and the FAFSA, I was enrolled in a science research program that required me to intern in a lab and enter several competitions. The majority of the school was also trying to submit their financial aid forms and the office was almost always crowded.”

The average college counselor is tasked with serving 500 students per year; 20% of high schools don’t even have a counselor.

Parents Don’t Know the Process Either

In a 2014 survey conducted by Discover, less than half of parents indicated that they felt “very knowledgeable” about how much college really costs.

Urooj’s parents immigrated from Pakistan and she was the first person in her family to go to college. She noted her parents “didn’t know anything about things like a 529 plan or how to pay for college” and instead she had to figure out everything from filing the FAFSA to submitting a corrected her FAFSA, to negotiating her tuition by herself.

Most people think parents “handle the finances of college”. As the founder of NextGenVest.com, we see tens of thousands of students trying to figure out how to pay for college completely by themselves, usually at 11PM at night.

Financial Aid Forms are Confusing and Misleading

The average college counselor is tasked with serving 500 students per year; 20% of high schools don’t even have a counselor.

Parents Don’t Know the Process Either

In a 2014 survey conducted by Discover, less than half of parents indicated that they felt “very knowledgeable” about how much college really costs. Urooj’s parents immigrated from Pakistan and she was the first person in her family to go to college. She noted her parents “didn’t know anything about things like a 529 plan or how to pay for college” and instead she had to figure out everything from filing the FAFSA to submitting a corrected her FAFSA, to negotiating her tuition by herself.

Most people think parents “handle the finances of college”. As the founder of NextGenVest.com, we see tens of thousands of students trying to figure out how to pay for college completely by themselves, usually at 11PM at night.

Financial Aid Forms are Confusing and Misleading

Despite efforts to simplify the FAFSA this year, the financial aid application process is incredibly complex.

Upon getting into colleges, families receive a customized financial aid award letter, detailing the merit and need based scholarships that may have been awarded by the school, grants, federal loans offered, and work study.

Each school sends a letter at a different time, in a different format, and with different ways of detailing actual out of pocket costs. Actually understanding what you are paying for now and later is incredibly difficult.

According to Urooj, she said she “didn't really know what [she] was looking at” when she got all of her award letters. Part of the confusion was that she actually submitted her FAFSA incorrectly the first time because she noted “my parents didn't have the W2 form, they had the 1099. My school required additional paperwork in those cases. I didn't realize that and when I was applying to the FAFSA, I left some information blank, believing that it didn't apply to me.”

This is typical for many students. Whether it’s submitting key forms incorrectly or late, many students’ forms are put at the bottom of the pile to be reviewed by financial aid offices at Universities resulting in getting a financial aid package later in the spring or summer before college.

This is the moment when Urooj almost didn’t go to college. She noted “my aid didn't get processed around the same time as many of my peers. The first day of college was approaching really fast as was the payment deadline. Since I hadn't heard anything from FAFSA, and I wasn't going to ask my parents to help me pay, I didn't think I would be starting in the fall. I was terrified and I felt defeated thinking that all the effort I put into my schoolwork was going to waste.”

How can students think about avoiding these mistakes?

The first step is to actually understand how much you owe and why. According to a recent national survey from LendingTree.com, 65% of students misunderstand the terms of their own student loans. There are many differences between federal and private loans from interest rates to repayment options to default measures.

The second is to “treat your education as an investment,” according to Doug Lebda, the CEO of LendingTree.com. It is known that college graduates can make on average $1 million more over the course of a lifetime, but Lebda notes “this is dependent on the area of study and marketable skills the student graduates with. There are good and bad investments.” In the same study, 55% of millennials surveyed expressed financial regret in attending college, 20% of whom wished they chose a different major or area of study.

Ultimately, students navigating what is one of the most significant financial decisions of their lives need to do their research and advocate for themselves during a very confusing process.

Kelly Peeler is the founder of NextGenVest.com, a text message service helping students pay for college and navigate student loans.

Coalition presents a 'Bill of Rights' for Staten Island

By Thomas Erik Bascome | [email protected] on January 17, 2017 at 4:57 PM

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- With Donald Trump's inauguration taking place at the end of the week, over 50 people showed up at Borough Hall on Tuesday to present a "Bill of Rights" for Staten Island.

Sustainable Staten Island, a coalition of labor, environmental, and human rights groups based on Staten Island, unveiled a "Bill of Rights" to remind the federal government and local elected officials that certain rights can not be infringed upon, regardless of who is in the White House.

"It's a unique coalition of people across the political spectrum from unions, to immigrant rights organizations, to small business people," said Cesar Vargas of the DREAM Action Coalition, an organization dedicated to educating people about the DREAM Act. "We have representation from Democrats, Independents, and Republicans who want to ensure that in the next four years we're reaffirmed certain rights."

The document contains the following eight rights:

1. All Staten Islanders have the right to equal protection of the laws, regardless of citizenship, ethnicity, sexual orientation and religion, granting each one of us to live our lives without the threat of discrimination. 2. All Staten Islanders have the right to employment opportunities, to fair conditions of work, compensation, and protection against unemployment, and the right to form unions for the protection of the pursuit of happiness. 3. All Staten Islanders have the right to a fully publicly funded and quality education that will equip them in their journey for meaningful employment and purpose in life. 4. All Staten Islanders have the right to accessible quality healthcare that will promote the strength and longevity of the body and mind. 5. All Staten islanders have the right to long-term comfortable, affordable, and secure housing that will protect them from the storms of nature. 6. All Staten Islanders have the right to clean water, air, parks, streets, and protection from climate change that is destroying Staten Island and our planet. 7. All Staten Islanders have the right to quality mass public transit, modern and reliable bridges, roadways, to ensure the meaningful enjoyment of life and family. 8. All Staten Islanders have the right to express their voice by protests, letter- writing, lobbying, rallies, and all free speech protected by our inalienable right.

The "Bill of Rights" was read aloud outside Borough Hall by representatives from the various local organizations.

The crowd then entered the lobby of Borough Hall and asked for a meeting with Borough President James Oddo to deliver the document by hand.

After several minutes of confusion, security asked everyone to leave, citing a fire hazard.

Oddo did not meet with the group, and Borough Hall declined to comment.

Members of Sustainable Staten Island said they will try to set up a meeting with borough president at a later date.

"I think that this 'bill' is a strong stepping stone for a bright and progressive Staten Island, but also for New York City," said Philippe-Edner Apostol-Marius, who is running for Councilwoman Debi Rose's seat.

The organizations involved with Sustainable Staten Island and the creation of the "Bill of Rights" include: Communications Workers of America-Local 1102; Make-the-Road New York; La Coleman; New York State Nurses Association; DREAM Action Coalition; Professional Staff Congress (CUNY PSC); SI Peace Action; SI Against Racism and Police Brutality.

"As an organization representing nurses that work in the two major hospital systems, we're on the front lines every day so we see how health care injustice affects our community," said Patricia Kane, treasurer of the New York State Nurses Association, who was present at Tuesday's event.

alpha-En Corporation Reports Quarterly Results for March 31, June 30 and September 30, 2016

TARRYTOWN, N.Y., Jan. 18, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- alpha-En Corporation (OTC PINK: ALPE), an innovative clean technology company focused on enabling next-generation battery technologies by producing high purity lithium metal and associated products, announced that on 01/17/2017 it filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q for the quarters ended March 31, 2016; June 30, 2016; and September 30, 2016. The three filings bring the Company to fully reporting status with the SEC.

The three quarterly filings on Form 10-Q can be found at www.sec.gov by searching for alpha-En company filings, or by following this link: https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse- edgar?company=alpha-En&owner=exclude&action=getcompany. They are also posted on the Company's website at www.alpha-Encorp.com and on various internet sites. alpha-En Founder and Executive Chairman of the Board Jerome Feldman commented, "We are pleased to have achieved fully reporting status; the transparency of being fully reporting is valuable to our shareholders, market-makers and potential investors in our future. Although we are still pre-revenue, our technology is potentially disruptive to the entire lithium metal industry.

"The new alpha-En technology produces high purity lithium at room temperature, compared to the conventional method that has a large energy footprint. We believe that the benefits of our high purity technology will be most attractive to high-tech, transportation and energy companies that have become increasingly reliant on lithium batteries.

The Company has R&D collaboration agreements with CUNY and Argonne National Laboratories as well as Princeton University to explore scaling the technology to commercially viable quantities and to provide samples of the finished product to interested parties. To support the efficient production of samples the Company is in the process of establishing its own laboratory and commercial headquarters in a facility in Yonkers, NY, where it has rented an 8,000-square-foot-space. This facility should be in move-in condition in the first quarter of 2017.

The Company believes it can continue to finance operations by selling equity or debt securities, as it has done in the past. Management believes in the viability of the alpha- En plan and technology, and in the ability of the Company to raise additional funds by way of a private or public offering of equity and/or debt. Of course there can be no assurance of the success of a future offering.

About alpha-En Corporation Alpha-En Corporation (OTC PINK: ALPE) is an innovative clean technology company focused on enabling next generation battery technologies by developing and bringing to market high purity lithium metal and associated products produced in an environmentally sustainable manner. For more information, please visit http://alpha-encorp.com.

American Health Council Names Kirk Dombrowski, Ph.D. to Education Board

Dr. Kirk Dombrowski of The University of Nebraska-Lincoln has been selected to join the Education Board at the American Health Council.

LINCOLN, NE, January 18, 2017 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Dr. Kirk Dombrowski of The University of Nebraska-Lincoln has been selected to join the Education Board at the American Health Council. He will be sharing his knowledge and expertise on Social Network Analysis in Health, Rural Public Health, and Drug Abuse.

With over eighteen years of experience in the field of Cultural Anthropology and Sociology, Dr. Dombrowski offers valuable insight in his role as John Bruhn Professor of Sociology at The University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Established in 1869, The University of Nebraska-Lincoln is recognized as the world's first undergraduate psychology laboratory.

As a John Bruhn Professor of Sociology at The University of Nebraska-Lincoln since 2014, Dr. Dombrowski's day-to-day responsibilities include teaching, researching on health disparities in the Great Plains, Native Health issue and substance abuse in Alaska, and HIV and drug abuse in Puerto Rico.

Throughout the course of his training, he earned his PhD in Cultural Anthropology from City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate School and University Center in 1998. Subsequently, he received his Master's in Anthropology from Columbia University in 1993. In 1989, he completed his Bachelor of Art in Anthropology from the University of Notre Dame.

Dr. Dombrowski's research interest developed after his dissertation in Alaska where he witnessed substance abuse. Upon his return to New York in the 90s, he decided to become a problem-driven researcher due to the increase of HIV and substance abuse. He attributes his success to discovering new methods to tackling problems.

Dr. Dombrowski maintains affiliations with the following organizations: American Sociological Association, American Anthropological Association & Society for Applied, Anthropology, and Canadian Anthropology Society.

His commitment to his research has resulted in various positions such as Director of UNL's Minority Health Disparities Initiative (MHDI), Principal Investigator at the REACH Lab, and Regional Speaker on Health Equity and Disparities (HIV and Substance Abuse). Looking ahead, Dr. Dombrowski hopes to continue working on HIV research in Puerto Rico, more outreach with medical colleagues, and obtain grants from the NIH.

A March Against Hate Shows Bay Ridge Grappling With Trump’s America

Bathed in the brightness of a sunny winter afternoon, several hundred people gathered in front of Islamic Society of Bay Ridge yesterday to participate in a March Against Hate.

The MLK Day march, which was organized by a local group called Bay Ridge for Social Justice, aimed to give local residents an opportunity to express their disdain for the impending inauguration.

But in a neighborhood as famous for the racist tenor of “Saturday Night Fever” as its growing Arab population, the march also sought to build unity and trust amongst residents at a time when fear is on the rise. For organizers, what’s happening in Bay Ridge might even be said to be a microcosm of what’s happening across the country – in which a white middle class that feels left out in the cold, stands at odds with an increasingly diverse and progressive community.

By one o’clock, the crowd had arrived, packed tightly into the sidewalk in front of the Islamic Center. Participants came with children and homemade signs in tow, bearing messages like “We will not be silent” and “No hate in our neighborhood.”

Danielle Bullock, 44, is an artist and educator who helped organize the march, and a resident of Bay Ridge. Asked why she felt the march was important, Bullock told the Village Voice it was due to the neighborhood’s large Muslim and Arabic-speaking population. David Farley, 49, is a teacher who also helped organize the march. “We just wanted to let [Arab American] residents know that we stand with them and we have their backs.”

With three Muslim New Yorkers murdered over the summer in suspected or alleged hate crimes, the city’s Muslim community has felt increasingly under siege, a sentiment that has only grown since the election of Donald Trump. Bay Ridge, which was historically a Norwegian, Italian and Irish neighborhood, and still has its fair share of conservatives, has not been immune from rising tensions. In December, an off-duty NYPD cop in a hijab, along with her son, were harassed and threatened as they parked their car in Bay Ridge.

“I came to join with all these wonderful people to march for unity and to march for protecting the civil liberties for everybody in this community,” said Reverend Khader N. El-Yateem, 48, who works as a pastor at the local Salam Arabic Lutheran Church. “Everybody has the right to live here with dignity and respect,” stressed El-Yateem, who said his congregants largely hail from Syria, Iraq, Palestine and Yemen.

A member Bay Ridge for Social Justice readied the crowd for marching with a series of rousing chants. “We will not deport our neighbors! We will not surveil our neighbors!” participants shouted in call and response. As the crowd began to walk south of 5th Avenue, they hollered “No hate! No fear! Immigrants are welcome here!”

A group of about five people hung towards the back of the march, standing slightly apart, with signs that read “Don’t hate the NYPD” and “I ?? Muslim Republicans.” Although it was clear there was some tension between the group and the rest of the crowd, the other marchers mostly left them alone. Liam McCabe, 38, who formerly worked as a staffer for local Congressman Dan Donovan, told the Village Voice that he and his supporters were not counter-protesters – they were just there to promote greater inclusion of all Bay Ridge voices.

“We felt that this march against hate has taken on a bit of a tone of intolerance, and that it was very political. It’s only specific to one kind of hate” – Islamophobia – he explained, “particularly [as promoted] by Republicans.” McCabe recently switched his party affiliation from Conservative to Republican, and is rumored to be planning a run for Bay Ridge’s 43rd District City Council seat.

“This is a very diverse neighborhood,” said McCabe, noting that people don’t spend enough time talking about “the hatred toward the NYPD, or the hate against the white working class.”

Bay Ridge’s elected officials are mostly Republican. The neighborhood shares its Congressional seat with the far more conservative Staten Island and is represented by Congressman Dan Donovan; in his previous job as the Staten Island District Attorney, Donovan failed to indict the police officer that killed Eric Garner. New York State Senator Marty Golden, who infamously proposed a taxpayer-funded etiquette class for his female constituents, ran unopposed in the November 2016 election (although he has lost Bay Ridge in the past).

Then there is State Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis, who received the most flak from local residents attending Monday’s march. She, along with Assemblyman Ronald Castorina Jr., are suing the city to prevent them from destroying records associated with the IDNYC program, which DeBlasio has promised to do in an effort to protect the undocumented.

Justin Brannan, a Democrat who recently announced he’d be running to represent the city’s 43rd District, was an enthusiastic attendee of the march. ”Bay Ridge has always been a very diverse community, we’ve always been a melting pot,” he told the Voice. Brannan said that Bay Ridge is much more left-leaning than people think (it went for Bernie during the Democratic primaries and has far more registered Democrats than Republicans). He explained that the neighborhood was primarily represented by three Republicans due to gerrymandering.

“People are fired up and they feel like coming out of the shadows,” he said of the march and the increase in local political activity. “I think people who are threatened by it are longing for a past that never existed in the first place.” Teddy Vallas, 28, another Bay Ridger who has lived there “all his life,” stepped out of his family’s real estate business along the march route to show his support. “It’s appropriate, especially now that the new administration is coming in – they have to know how the people feel,” he told the Voice.

The march arrived at the Salam Arabic Lutheran Church on 80th St, and piled into the church gym. Inside, the Voice spoke to Aber Kawas, 24, the lead organizer at the Bay Ridge-based Arab American Association of New York (AAANY). Asked how the local Muslim community has been feeling since Trump’s election, Kawas said that “it’s been a really difficult time,” and that a sense of fear had settled over some residents.

“It’s the reality. This is what Bay Ridge is like,” said Kawas when asked about the non-counter- protesters. Kawas emphasized that the latent racism in Bay Ridge was one reason that the day’s March against Hate was so important. “For community members always feeling unsafe in Bay Ridge, to be in a space where they see their own neighbors,” including white residents, showing solidarity with them, “I think is really meaningful.”

A series of local residents gave speeches about remembering the radical and revolutionary nature of MLK’s work, and called on Bay Ridge residents to unite to fight the Trump agenda. Alan Aja, who leads the Puerto Rican and Latino Studies Program at Brooklyn College, condemned Malliotakis, who is the daughter of Greek and Cuban immigrants.

“Immigration is a human right,” said Aja. “Oftentimes its those who are filing these lawsuits who forget their roots.”

In between speakers, Bay Ridge kids read rousing quotes from famous public figures, including Native American incarcerated activist Leonard Peltier, trans activist and communist Leslie Feinberg and feminist fantasy writer Ursula Le Guin.

Executive Director Linda Sarsour, who has been busy organizing the upcoming Women’s March on Washington, was met with thunderous applause as she addressed the crowd. “If we are going to stand up to xenophobia, to racism, to islamaphobia, to homophobia, if we are going to say hands off our healthcare, hands off our reproductive rights, hands off our undocumented sisters and brothers, then we need to say that right here in Bay Ridge.” Sarsour, who campaigned for Bernie, said that the Democratic primary results showed just how progressive Bay Ridge is – even if those progressive are “still in the closet” – and she called on residents to come together to protect each other by speaking out.

“I hope that we all commit today, that we commit that we will not be part of the silent majority. You can count on me, as a daughter of Brooklyn, as a daughter of Bay Ridge, that I will always stand strong,” said Sarsour in her closing remarks.

“I don’t care about the critics, I care about standing up and doing what is right. Together, that is who Bay Ridge is going to be.”

Brother of Baruch College student who joined ISIS says he helped him get ready for Syria but didn’t want him to fight

The brother of a Baruch College student who died fighting for ISIS in 2015 didn’t want his sibling to join the terror group — but still helped him prep for the trip before leaving for Syria, it was revealed Tuesday.

Tarek el-Goarany's older brother, Samy el-Goarany, 24, traveled to Turkey in early 2015 and crossed the border into Syria shortly thereafter, where he then joined ISIS.

The circumstances surrounding how Samy el-Goarany arrived at the terrorist epicenter are presently at issue in the Manhattan Federal Court case against Ahmed Mohammed el-Gammal — who is accused of helping the college student get there.

Tarek el-Goarany testified that Samy grew increasingly obsessed with ISIS in summer 2014, while they were on break from school.

“He’d be angrier or more emotional at times," said Tarek el-Goarany, 24.

“He asked me what would I think if he would join ISIS — and I was shocked,” Tarek el-Goarany recalled. "I told him I didn’t agree with the group at all ... definitely it's the wrong decision to make."

"I thought I could convince him myself," Tarek said of his decision not to tell anyone, and "not alienate him by telling people when he told me not to." And yet in fall 2014, when Samy el-Goarany kept pursuing his plan, Tarek accompanied him on several errands such as buying outdoor gear and his plane ticket.

Asked why he went shopping for boots and water bottle with Samy el-Goarany, Tarek replied, “I wanted to talk to him, with him, as much as possible.”

When the FBI questioned Tarek el-Goarany about Samy after his departure, he covered for his brother.

"I lied to them," Tarek el-Goarany said. "I was scared to tell the FBI the truth because I didn't know what would happen to my family..."

Tarek el-Goarany ultimately came clean to the FBI in early summer 2015. The feds agreed not to prosecute Tarek el-Goarany if he cooperated, he said.

El-Gammal's lawyers hit back at Tarek el-Goarany by trying to show inconsistencies in his testimony — and suggest he was more emotionally complicit in the plan than he originally let on.

Tarek el-Goarany said during cross-examination that he and a cousin who had learned of the plan agreed not to say anything about Samy's intent.

Brother didn’t rat out ISIS recruit as ‘big f–k you’ to family By Kaja Whitehouse and Reuven Fenton

January 17, 2017 | 7:26pm

A former Queens College student said he helped cover up his older brother’s plans to join ISIS as a “big f–k you” to his family, who saw him as “stupid and complacent.”

Tarek El-Goarany told a Manhattan federal jury that he kept his brother Samy El- Goarany’s whereabouts hidden from his parents after Samy fled to Syria in 2015 — and then lied to the FBI when they came knocking — because he believed Samy had a right to be happy, “just like everybody does.”

Tarek, 24, also did it as an act of rebellion against his family, according to online messages introduced at the trial of Ahmed el Gammal, who stands accused of helping Samy join ISIS.

“Just deny that either of us knows anything and just say a big F–K YOU to the rest of the family,” Tarek had written to his cousin.

In another exchange, he complained that they saw him as “stupid and complacent.”

The feds have accused el Gammal, a small business owner from Arizona, of putting Samy in touch with someone in Turkey who helped him cross into Syria.

Samy died in late 2015, less than a year later, the feds have said.

Experts urge for wider prescription of statins in treatment and prevention Link to diabetes is questionable and inconsequential FLORIDA ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY

World-renowned researchers from the Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine at Florida Atlantic University as well as Harvard Medical School address the possible but unproven link between statins and diabetes, as well as the implications of prescription of statins for clinicians and their patients, in a commentary published in the prestigious American Journal of Medicine. The editor-in-chief of the journal published the commentary and an editorial he wrote online ahead of print.

Charles H. Hennekens, M.D, Dr.P.H., the first Sir Richard Doll professor and senior academic advisor to the dean, the Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine at FAU; Bettina Teng, BA, a recent pre-med honors graduate of the Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College at FAU; and Marc A. Pfeffer, M.D., Ph.D., the Dzau professor of medicine at HMS, emphasize to clinicians that the risk of diabetes, even if real, pales in comparison to the benefits of statins in both the treatment and primary prevention of heart attacks and strokes.

"The totality of evidence clearly indicates that the more widespread and appropriate utilization of statins, as adjuncts, not alternatives to therapeutic lifestyle changes, will yield net benefits in the treatment and primary prevention of heart attacks and strokes, including among high, medium and low risk patients unwilling or unable to adopt therapeutic lifestyle changes," said Hennekens.

In the accompanying editorial, Joseph S. Alpert, M.D., editor-in-chief and a renowned cardiologist and professor of medicine at the University of Arizona School of Medicine, reinforces these important and timely clinical and public health challenges in treatment and primary prevention.

"There is no threshold for low density lipoprotein cholesterol below which there are no net benefits of statins either in the treatment or primary prevention of heart attacks and strokes," said Alpert.

The authors and editorialist express grave concerns that there will be many needless premature deaths as well as preventable heart attacks and strokes if patients who would clearly benefit from statins are not prescribed the drug, refuse to take the drug, or stop using the drug because of ill-advised adverse publicity about benefits and risks, which may include misplaced concerns about the possible but unproven small risk of diabetes.

"These public health issues are especially alarming in primary prevention, particularly among women, for whom cardiovascular disease also is the leading cause of death, and for whom there is even more underutilization of statins than for men," said Hennekens.

At its national meeting in November 2013, the American Heart Association, in collaboration with the American College of Cardiology, presented and published its new guidelines for the use of statins in the treatment and primary prevention of heart attacks and strokes, in which the organizations also recommended wider utilization in both treatment and prevention.

According to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, heart disease is the leading killer among men and women, causing approximately 600,000 deaths each year.

Among the numerous honors and recognitions Hennekens has received include the 2013 Fries Prize for Improving Health for his seminal contributions to the treatment and primary prevention of cardiovascular disease, the 2013 Presidential Award from his alma mater, Queens College, for his distinguished contributions to society, and the 2013 American Heart Association Award, which he shared with the Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine at FAU for reducing premature deaths from heart attacks and strokes. From 1995 to 2005, Science Watch ranked him as the third most widely cited medical researcher in the world and five of the top 20 were his former trainees and/or fellows. In 2012, Science Heroes ranked Hennekens No. 81 in the history of the world for having saved more than 1.1 million lives. In 2014, he received the Ochsner Award for reducing premature deaths from cigarettes. In 2016, he was ranked the No. 14 "Top Scientist in the World" with an H- index of 173.

Mother Jones, ProPublica Win 2017 John Jay Justice Journalism Awards

Shane Bauer of Mother Jones, and the investigative reporting team of Ryan Gabrielson and Topher Sanders of ProPublica are the winners of the John Jay College/Harry Frank Guggenheim 2017 Awards for Excellence in Criminal Justice Reporting.

“At this critical time in criminal justice, the work of journalists has never been more important,” said John Jay College President Jeremy Travis.

“We are proud to honor these reporters for their hard work, dedication and commitment—and for the inspiring example they set for their colleagues.”

Runner-up in the single-story category was awarded to Eli Hager and Alysia Santo of The Marshall Project for “Inside the Deadly World of Private Prisoner Transport.” Their seven-month investigation uncovered a “deadly world that operates with virtually no oversight,” wrote TMP editor Bill Keller.

The story was simultaneously published on the front page of The New York Times.

In the series category, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Baltimore Sun tied for the runner-up slot.

The Post-Gazette’s Michael A. Fuoco was honored by the judges for his five-part series, “What Cost Freedom?”—an examination of the case of Lewis Jim Fogle, exonerated in 2015 after serving 34 years for a murder he did not commit.

The series led to a “call to action” for compensation for the wrongfully convicted, including the strengthening of lobbying efforts by Innocence Projects in Pennsylvania and New York, said Assistant Managing Editor Virginia Linn in her nominating letter.

The Baltimore Sun’s Justin George was honored for his year- long investigation, “Shoot to Kill,” of fatal shootings in major U.S. cities. “George revealed an impossibly knotted web of violence that will leave readers despairing, but well-informed,” said juror Beth Schwartzapfel.

The prizes, administered by John Jay’s Center on Media, Crime and Justice (CMCJ), recognize the previous year’s best print and online justice reporting in a U.S.-based media outlet between November 2015 and October 2016.

Winning entries in each of the two categories share a cash award of $1,500 and a plaque. Runners-up (see below) receive a certificate of Honorable Mention.

Links to winning stories and information about the prize are available here.

Queens College students get the chance to walk ‘In the Footsteps’ of Martin Luther King Jr.

Several students from Queens College “have a dream” that they are living out as they travel to Georgia and Alabama to walk in the footsteps of one of our nation’s most heralded civil rights leaders, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

On Sunday, Jan. 15, led by Rabbi Moshe Shur, an adjunct professor at Queens College, 18 culturally and religiously diverse students left LaGuardia Airport to begin their journey and the third annual Queens College project, “In the Footsteps of Dr. King,” where they will visit Atlanta, GA, and Montgomery, Selma, and Birmingham, AL.

During the trip, students visited museums, memorials and historically important sites, as well as participate in a Martin Luther King Day march in Atlanta. In a new item on the project’s itinerary, the students will retrace King’s walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, where armed police officers attacked peaceful protesters.

Students will also get the chance to meet people who played a pivotal role in the fight for civil rights, including Barbara Emerson Williams, the daughter of Reverend Hosea Williams — King’s assistant — whose family foundation established Hosea Feed the Hungry in Atlanta.

For Rabbi Shur, the trip is more than just a project for his students, it is a chance to remember his time as a student volunteer in 1965 and 1966 when he joined other students for a summer initiative to register disenfranchised voters in six southern states. It was during this time that Shur — president of the student participants in the national project begun by King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference — got to meet King, who “brought us a vision of social justice for all Americans,” he said.

Students will be using video, photography and writing to record their experiences throughout the trip, which they will then share in a campus-wide presentation at Queens College this spring semester.