The Bronx Ink

Josselin wants to go to college some day and her mother ,Maria Gama , is determined to help her, despite the odds. (VALENTINE PASQUESOONE/The Bronx Ink).

Maria Gama wants nothing more than to send her 15-year-old to college. The 34-year-old immigrant from Mexico was never able to complete high school herself, and she wanted something more for her daughter.  So Gama, who works as a housekeeper and a nanny in Manhattan, looked around her Highbridge neighborhood for advice.

She quickly realized help was hard to come by. It turns out that the neighborhood has one of the lowest rates of college graduates in the city. The U.S. Census reported that only 7.5 percent received a diploma from a four-year college, compared to 18 percent of around the Bronx.  About 19 percent of Highbridge’s residents enrolled in college at one time or another and never finished.

Even fewer–5.6 percent in Highbridge–received a community college diploma, a full 36 percentage points behind New York City’s average.

During her freshman year at DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx, Josselin was able to find a summer program for promising high school students in Westchester County. She spent weeks there surrounded by college bound kids, which helped open her eyes to the possibilities. “She saw the difference between people who study and people who don’t,” said Gama.

Still the hurdles are only beginning. In Highbridge, only 13 percent of Highbridge students are ready for college when they graduate. Many point to something called the opportunity gap. A new report from the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University shows in statistical terms how living in a low-income neighborhood can affect high school students’ chances to go to college.

“The poorer you are, the worse your education is,” said Peg Tyre, author who works as a director of strategy at the Edwin Gould Foundation, a non profit dedicated to funding college readiness programs for underprivileged kids. “Education is probably the most powerful lever in reducing economic inequities.” In 2011, an adult with a bachelor’s degree earned an average of $1,053 a week in the U.S., according to the Bureau of Labor. Someone with no college education earned $415 less every week.

Residents in the mostly low-income Highbridge section of the Bronx are now starting to worry about how few of its youth residents go to college —an issue that had remained under-addressed for years.

“Most people don’t even think about college here,” said Chauncy Young, 36, a community education organizer since 2004.

The initiative to finally tackle it came from the United Parents of Highbridge. A member of the parent organization, Young was among those to identify programs to prepare students for college as a key issue for the year, during one of the organizations’ monthly meetings at the Highbridge Library on August 29.

Gabriela Silverio, a community activist, writes down ideas to help prepare students for college in the neighborhood, at a United Parents of Highbridge meeting on Aug. 29. (VALENTINE PASQUESOONE/The Bronx Ink).

Community organizers and education advocates talked about college trips and college fairs, discussions about colleges between teachers, principals and students in the neighborhood’s schools. “And explain what it really takes to go to college,” Young said. “What are the financial resources available? What are the steps? Parents just don’t know the options.”

Maria Gama, who wasn’t at the meeting, moved from Morrissania to the neighborhood in February. She said many of her friends there send their children to the closest colleges like the Bronx Community College. “They don’t know about the greater opportunities they might have,” she said. Maria Gama wasn’t aware of college possibilities for her daughter until a friend told Josselin to search admissions’ requirement for a variety of colleges.

“My family was talking about college, and that’s about it,” said Brigitte Bermudez, a 20-year-old resident who grew up in Highbridge. “Children don’t care about college. But teachers should have pushed us, they should have given us the information.”

Brigitte Bermudez, 20, hopes to return to college next year. (VALENTINE PASQUESOONE/The Bronx Ink).

Bermudez went to Boricua College in Manhattan for a year, but she dropped out in June. She said she didn’t like it after a while. Her professors in the second semester were not as engaging, and she felt it was high school again. She is now trying to apply to other colleges for next year.

Bermudez’s grandmother, Aida Davis, has taken her to a few United Parents of Highbridge meetings to help her with college searches. Otherwise, Bermudez said, “there’s nobody to go through applications with here.”

Schools and community organizations have so far only taken small steps to raise college awareness in the neighborhood. Last May, two college representatives came to the library to introduce their universities. Leticia Rosario, the principal of P.S/I.S. 218, said on August 29 that her school would hold a college fair in December.

Sarah Gale, a 32-year-old business consultant and member of the United Parents of Highbridge, said the process of choosing a middle school for her son —and worrying about college ahead of time— was “nerve-wracking”. “Unless we do the research to get our youth into the right schools, there’s not much hope for them here,” she said.

Her son now goes to the Thurgood Marshall Academy, a college-preparatory school in Harlem. “He’s 13, and he knows where he wants to go to college,” Gale said. “Most of his friends don’t talk about it at all.”

Signs greet visitors to Monroe College in Fordham. Photo: Elisabeth Anderson

Ruth Garcia used to be a college student, which is a tough feat for someone who hasn’t finished high school.  Tired of living on welfare, the 57-year-old South Bronx mother of seven grown children decided her life needed an upgrade.  She enrolled in a program at Monroe College, a for-profit institution in the Fordham section of the borough, that would allow her to pursue her General Educational Development (GED) high school equivalency and an associate’s degree at the same time.

“When I went, I was on cloud nine,” she said.  “I figured I was getting two for the price of one.  Supposedly TAP and Pell would pick up the bill,” she added, referring to the state and federal loans in her financial aid package.  Monroe’s admissions staff indicated that aid would be enough to cover her education.

But as Garcia would quickly learn, only one of her first four courses earned her a college credit.  She was taking mandatory classes in reading, social studies, and math, but none counted towards her degree.  She was spending down her financial aid, without the credits to show for it.  She dropped out after her second semester.

“When you expect that dream to come true and it pops, you get depressed about it,” she said.  “I’m still stuck in the same spot, and I want to move up the ladder.”

Cases like Garcia’s are currently the subject of a national debate that could forever change for-profit schools’ license to operate.  The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) is leading an investigation that focuses on deceptive marketing and recruiting tactics, over-reliance on federal loan funds as a primary revenue source, and program ineffectiveness as measured by the percent of graduates who secure gainful employment.  The entire for-profit college sector is under scrutiny, with large players like University of Phoenix and Kaplan generating the most attention. Monroe College is not the subject of an individual investigation, but several Monroe students have complained about aggressive recruiting and what they call misleading descriptions of how far their aid packages will go in financing their educations.

After an initial investigation of 15 schools, three hearings, and two reports, the Senate committee demanded data from an additional 30 institutions that collectively operate nearly 100 schools, of which Monroe College is not one; this information is currently under review.  The Department of Education has just approved its own set of regulations related to the controversy, which will go into effect in July 2011.  The new rules aim to strengthen federal student aid programs by protecting students from aggressive or misleading recruiting practices, providing higher education consumers with better information about colleges’ program effectiveness, and working to see that only eligible students receive aid.

“The basic regulatory framework within these schools operate creates perverse incentives for excessive profitability,” said Barmak Nassirian, Associate Executive Director of External Relations at the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO), and a critic of for-profit college practices.  AACRAO is a national nonprofit professional association of more than 10,000 higher education admissions and registration professionals.

According to the federal Department of Education, students at for-profit institutions represent 11 percent of all higher education students, but 26 percent of all student loans and 43 percent of all loan defaulters.  The schools carry “obscene bottom lines that they generate based almost entirely on tax dollars,” Nassirian said.  More than a quarter of for-profit colleges receive 80 percent of their revenues from taxpayer-financed federal student aid.  Nassirian said that he doesn’t believe every school is a bad actor, but that the causality can’t be overlooked.  “Human nature tends to look at short-term motives,” he said.  “If the federal regulatory system doesn’t kick in, don’t be surprised if the profit motive takes over.”

Many for-profit colleges target low-income and minority student candidates who qualify for federal loans.  Monroe College offers certificates, associate, bachelor’s, and master’s degrees at its main Bronx campus and two satellites in New Rochelle, in Westchester County, and on the Caribbean island of St. Lucia; the St. Lucia campus is accredited as an American institution offering American degrees, meaning students may apply for federal aid.  Monroe’s Bronx campus, a series of nondescript mid-rise buildings along a commercial stretch of Jerome Avenue, caters to a largely female, minority, lower-income student base.  Nearly three-quarters of undergraduates enrolled in the fall of 2009 were women; 42 percent were black, and half were Hispanic.

Monroe officials defend their institution’s record and say it’s wrong to target for-profit schools.  “Clearly there are problems in all sectors of higher education,” said Dr. Donald Simon, the school’s assistant vice president of governmental affairs. “Selecting one sector and excluding the others is counterproductive.” He added that according to state education department data, Monroe College has the third-highest number of minority baccalaureate grads in New York State, in any sector.

Indeed, state data from 2006, the most recent available, supports the notion that minority students get their associate’s degrees in two years at a much higher rate at for-profit schools than elsewhere.  More than 27 percent  of black students graduated in that timeframe, compared to 11.5 percent at independent schools, 3.7 percent at State University of New York (SUNY) schools, and 1.3 percent at City University of New York (CUNY) schools.  The picture is similar for Hispanics, with 28.7 percent of for-profit students getting associate’s degrees in two years, compared to 17.7 percent at independent schools, 5.3 percent at SUNY schools and 1.2 percent at CUNY schools.

“New York State’s proprietary degree-granting colleges have the highest associate degree graduation rate of any of the four sectors,” Simon added.  Preliminary data for 2009 from the New York State Office of Higher Education shows proprietary or for-profit schools coming in second place to independent colleges, although the data has not yet been fully edited.  Thirty percent of full-time first-time students, of any ethnicity, at for-profit schools earned an associate’s degree within two years, compared to 42 percent at independent schools. Both for-profit and independent schools did much better than SUNY and CUNY schools, which showed two-year associate’s degree graduation rates of 11.4 percent and 2.3 percent, respectively.

Like other for-profit schools, Monroe College isn’t shy about recruiting prospective students.  Marlyn Morillo, a 28-year-old South Bronx resident originally from the Dominican Republic, fit the profile of a typical Monroe College student when she was heavily recruited by the school.  She applied and was accepted to a joint GED and associate’s degree program in 2008.  “By Fordham Road, they were giving out cards and magazines with what courses you could do,” she said.  Morillo said that six representatives from Monroe College had a table set up outside the Fordham Road subway stop the day she applied.

Morillo said she was captivated by the promise of being able to pursue her GED and associate’s degree at the same time, and by the thought of how proud her 11, eight-, and four-year-old children would be to see her in school.

She was getting assistance from a social service agency called FACTS when she was accepted to Monroe College.  The group urged her not to enroll, explaining potential pitfalls in earning credits and financing her education.  FACTS is where Morillo met Carol Williams, who now runs the College Prep Program at Grace Outreach, a South Bronx non-profit organization helping women earn their GEDs and prepare for college.

Williams said for-profit colleges frequently use the two-for-one GED and associate’s degree package as a marketing device.  What they don’t tell prospective students, however, is the impracticality of such an approach.  Most students who don’t yet have their GEDs are unqualified to take college-level courses, and even those who are can be subject to school restrictions about how many of the classes they take will earn them college credits before they get their GEDs.  This means students can be taking and draining their aid packages on college classes that are non-credited.  “I tell my students to do it the right way,” she said.  “Get your GED, then apply to college.”

Morillo, now enrolled in Williams’ college prep course and applying to Bronx Community College, said she still spots Monroe recruiters frequently at the same location, during rush hour, and that she’s been approached again.  “I still see them and I say, ‘Oh no no, no thank you,’” she said.  On one occasion two months ago, she told recruiters she attended Lehman College, so that they’d let her go.  “And they tried to convince me, ‘You should have gone to Monroe.’  I said, ‘Don’t convince me.’ ”  Morillo, who wants to be a social worker, said she feels like she’s averted a big mistake by not enrolling in Monroe and choosing to get her GED before re-applying to college.  “You don’t know how much,” she said.  If she had chosen her original path, “Probably right now, I’d be crying.”

Monroe College Way, near the school's main buildings. Photo: Elisabeth Anderson

The New York Post reported in July that Monroe College spends about $3 million a year on marketing and pulls in $90 million in tuition, mostly from taxpayer-backed federal loans and state and federal grants given to 99 percent of its students.  Representatives from Monroe would neither confirm nor deny these figures, and said its financial information is  private.

Colleges around the country have faced criticism for admissions-related practices, such as pumping up applicant numbers to enhance selectivity.  A problem that appears to be unique to certain for-profit schools is the use of recruiter commissions.  “When the basis for an admission officer’s pay is based on commission, the incentive to mislead students is so prominent,” said David Hawkins, director of public policy for the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC), a politically-active membership group of 11,000 professionals who help students make choices about pursuing postsecondary education; the group is critical of current for-profit college practices and does not currently include individuals from for-profits among its membership ranks.  Even some administrators at for-profit schools say the rules need to be changed, and that the federal government should have cracked down on aggressive recruiting a long time ago.

According to Hawkins, who testified during the second Senate HELP Committee hearing on for-profit colleges on Aug. 4, the friendly regulatory environment of the past decade allowed the for-profit college industry to boom.  With many of the schools’ parent companies publicly traded, he said the schools needed to show consistent increases in enrollment as a marker of growth to investors.  Former President George W. Bush signed legislation creating 12 loopholes commonly known as “safe harbors,” which kept the enrollment-based commissions legal.

The Department of Education’s forthcoming regulations would undo those loopholes, a step in the right direction, according to Hawkins.  On Oct. 28, the Obama administration released a broad set of rules to strengthen federal student aid programs at for-profit, nonprofit and public institutions by protecting students from aggressive or misleading recruiting practices, providing consumers with better information about the effectiveness of career college and training programs, and working to see that only eligible students or programs receive aid.  These regulations are expected to be implemented in July 2011.

“We certainly welcome the for-profits as a player in the U.S.,” Hawkins said.  “We have some hope that the successful for-profit colleges will adhere to the standards and by that token, earn a return.”

National Center for Education Statistics data show that with many students starting and draining their aid packages on remedial classes – New York State allows associate’s degree candidates only six semesters of TAP aid – just 60 percent of students who started at Monroe full-time in the fall of 2008 returned in the fall of 2009.  Part-timers fared worse, with only 53 percent returning.  Just half of full-time, first-time students graduated within 150 percent of “normal time” to complete their program; two years is normal time for an associate’s degree, four years for a bachelor’s.  While better than the 44 percent graduation rate for a bachelor’s degree within six years at CUNY schools, it is less than the nearly 70 percent of bachelor’s graduates in the same timeframe at independent schools and 61.2 percent at SUNY schools, according to 2008 data from the New York State Office of Higher Education.

The differences between these various forms of higher education are often mysterious to minority and low-income students. Scherline Feliciano wishes she’d been savvy to potentially misleading marketing.  The 24-year-old, who lives with her mother in the Southwest Bronx, has at least $2,500 in debt to show for her one-month-and-one-week stint at Monroe College.

Students work with a tutor at Grace Outreach in Mott Haven. Photo: Elisabeth Anderson

Enrolled in a joint GED and associate’s degree program, Feliciano said she felt unprepared.  “I didn’t feel like I was ready,” she said.  “If I can’t understand the teachers, what’s the purpose of going to that school?”  She added that the college-level courses she was enrolled in were not credited.  “That’s just like a big waste of time,” she said.  “I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.”  Feliciano is now studying for her GED, and then hopes to major in psychology at Lehman College, part of the CUNY system.

Of the 2,800 students who either graduated or dropped out of Monroe since 2007, 23.1 percent have defaulted on their government-backed loans, according to for-profit college loan repayment data released by the Department of Education in August; those still enrolled are not included in the analysis.  The rate is nearly seven times the 3.6 percent at private Fordham University and nearly four times the six percent rate at Lehman College.  “If fewer than one-third of your graduates can pay back their loans,” Nassirian said, speaking of for-profit colleges overall, “you are a bad apple.”

Simon, Monroe’s government affairs chief, says the numbers may be misleading.  “The current debate over for-profit education is problematic because it does not consider institutional outcomes such as graduation and placement, but deals with a limited selection of numbers, specifically student repayment of loan principal,” he said.  “Ironically, federal regulations permit students to defer repayment of loan principal yet those who appropriately use such opportunities are being considered a negative statistic against the college.”  Administrators at for-profit schools also agree that the federal and state financial aid rules can be complex and difficult for students to understand.  That’s how many get in to trouble without realizing it.

National legislation that might help is still many months away, according to a Senate HELP Committee official.  Chairman Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) plans to hold at least one more hearing and review the results of the latest round of materials requested from an additional 60 for-profit colleges first, she said.

Another big question is the Department of Education’s controversial gainful employment regulation, which would require for-profits to show the value of the education they provide via statistics showing graduation and job placement rates for school programs.  This will be an item to watch, as the department reacts to nearly 90,000 comments received on its proposals.

Two days of public hearings were held on Nov. 4 and 5, and the department has also been hosting more than 30 meetings this fall with individuals and organizations who submitted comments on the proposed regulation; one of these meetings, on Oct. 18, was with representatives from Monroe College.  According to an official in the Department of Education press office, Monroe leadership and staff did express concern with the gainful employment rule at the meeting, but stated that they felt it was possible to make changes that would bring their programs into good standing under the proposed rule.  Monroe’s Simon would not comment specifically on the meeting, but stressed how important it is that the department rules be “realistic and reasonable.”

A Monroe graduate named Trina Thompson generated national attention last year, when she threatened to sue the school for $75,000 worth of tuition reimbursement and personal stress because, she alleged, the school’s career services department didn’t do enough to help her land a job after graduation.  According to Gary Axelbank, Monroe’s director of public relations, “It’s a non-issue.  It was not even a lawsuit.”  Thompson filed a complaint but never a lawsuit.  Axelbank, who added that Monroe’s mission is to provide education focused on job training, said that Monroe hired more career counselors when the economy worsened.  Thompson could not be reached for comment.

There are many cases of hope in the Bronx.  Betsy Vega’s comes with a warning. Vega is on track to get her GED, studying hard at Grace Outreach.  The 22-year-old had aged out of New York City’s foster care system and was working minimum wage jobs when she decided to enroll at a for-profit college in Queens.  She spent two years earning 15 credits, but no GED.  She still owes the school between $3,000 and $4,000.  Vega hopes others won’t make her mistakes.  “Focus on one thing at a time,” she said.  “Especially with all these sharks in the water.  You get nothing.  They only sell you dreams.”

Lorraine Valentin, in black t-shirt, works with her students at Grace Outreach. Photo: Elisabeth Anderson

It was lunchtime, and Lorraine Valentin’s students were ready for a break.  But not before the 27-year-old Valentin ran through a few more math problems.  She was up, and down, and up again, bouncing from student to student in her General Educational Development (GED) prep tutorial at Grace Outreach in Mott Haven.

“It’s like having Rosie Perez as your math tutor,” said Andrew Rubinson, 49, the nonprofit group’s executive director.  “She’s Bronx all the way.”

Indeed, Valentin has been in the Bronx since her family moved to the borough from Puerto Rico when she was a year old, and she’s been a tutor and teacher’s assistant at Grace Outreach for three years.  A lean operation with just three teachers and six tutors, Grace Outreach has helped 565 women earn their GEDs.

During the 2009-2010 school year, 133 of 244 Grace Outreach students who took the GED exam, or 55 percent, passed; an additional 34 were what the program refers to as “two-steppers,” or students sent by teachers to take the exam since they were likely to pass three or four of the test’s five sections, meaning they would only need to focus on the remaining one or two when they re-take it.  While the Community Service Society reported last year that there is no centralized city reporting of GED program success rates, it’s clear that Grace Outreach’s pass rate of 55 percent is substantially better than 47.5 percent, pass rate for GED exam-takers citywide.

The pictures of Grace Outreach’s GED graduates line the hallway of the nonprofit organization’s space on the fifth floor of Immaculate Conception, a Catholic elementary school.  Valentin was one of those women.  She came to Grace Outreach in 2007 after watching her “draining financial aid” finally dry up at for-profit Monroe College.  Monroe accepted Valentin without a GED to take both a GED prep course as well as start an associate degree in business management.  She wasn’t prepared for the latter, and fell behind.  “I realized I wasn’t making credits,” Valentin said.

She maxed out her aid before she had her GED and then found Grace Outreach advertised at a local church and made a call.  With just two weeks of attention at Grace Outreach, she passed the test.  “I came in, and we just got things done!” she said.  The staff was so impressed they offered her a full-time tutoring job.

Grace Outreach grew out of Grace Institute, a New York City institution founded by chemical company chief W.R. Grace in 1897 to help low-income women secure jobs.  In 2005 his great granddaughter-in-law, Margaret Grace, opened the nonprofit’s doors, with a mission to help Bronx women with jobs and education.

While Valentin said she considers herself lucky, she still wishes financial constraints didn’t make getting back to college so difficult.

“College prep is really about three things – money, money, and money,” Rubinson said.  Grace Outreach piloted a college prep program nearly two years ago to help students, 90 percent of whom are Grace Outreach GED graduates, make smart decisions about financing their college educations.

It’s a program model that is likely to start cropping up around the country. President Barack Obama is pushing for the United States to regain the global lead in college completion by 2020.  Approximately 37 million Americans aged 25 to 64 have started but dropped out of college.  That’s equivalent to about one-fifth of the nation’s workforce.

The Obama-backed initiative places special emphasis on community colleges, which educate 45 percent of the nation’s undergraduates.  The president’s focus on community colleges is also being supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which announced it would donate $34.8 million over five years for a competitive pool of grants for proposals to increase the graduation rates of community college students.

Professionals at Grace Outreach believe that structure and encouragement are essential in that quest to college completion.  The organization’s college prep program manager, Carol Williams, said most of her students have the potential to go to college, but there was no one there to support them.  Williams, 39, developed, runs, and teaches the two-year-old curriculum for three hours every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday afternoon.  The goal of her teaching is to prepare students to take the City University of New York (CUNY) placement test, which covers reading, writing, and math; students who pass these are exempt from taking remedial courses when they enroll at a CUNY school.

This can mean the difference between staying in college and dropping out, Williams said.  She said 95 percent of her students receive full financial aid packages from CUNY; a student who is using that aid solely toward college-level coursework is much more likely to graduate.  Those who drain down their aid on remedial work often quit when the money runs out.

Williams’ course begins with a placement test to gauge how much students know in the math, reading, and writing subjects that will be tested.  The next week, Williams and her colleagues begin working hand-in-hand with students as they complete their college and financial aid applications.  Grace Outreach subsidizes the $65 CUNY application fee, so students only pay $30 themselves.

For three months, students vigorously prepare for the placement test.  Those who started in Williams’ class this September will take the test in mid-December; they will have an opportunity to take a CUNY-sponsored 20-hour prep workshop and re-take the test in early January if needed.  This maximizes the chance that students can collect exemptions prior to the start of CUNY courses in late January.

Williams never has more than 20 students in her class.  Of the 36 total who applied to college in the pilot year, 31 were still enrolled in those colleges in September 2009.  Some of the schools they attended were two-year institutions like Hostos Community College and Bronx Community College, and four-year institutions like Lehman College and John Jay College.

“I’d love to go back to college to become an official math teacher,” said Valentin.  “I will be going back.”  At the end of her workday, she still asks the teachers at Grace Outreach to give her challenging problems to do at home; she and her six-year-old daughter sit down to do their homework together.  She plans to enroll at Bronx Community College as soon as possible.  Grace Outreach is working to provide a loan that will make it happen.

Teaching Forward from Connie Preti on Vimeo.

By Maia Efrem and Sarah Wali

For Sarah Delany, this semester at Hostos Community College was looking good. She had been elected as the student senate representative, accepted into the highly competitive nursing program, and would continue to be part of the university sponsored Student Leadership Academy.

The Student Leadership Academy holds workshops weekly that might be canceled due to budget cuts.

But professors delivered a shock to the  nursing students on the first day of classes. Students would have to pay for their own course materials this year, which included interactive textbooks, access to an online instructor, online practice exams, a DVD lecture review system and eight review books.

The package  distributed by Assessment Technologies Institute, LLC would cost them $430. A grant covered the cost for last year’s students.  There was no grant for this year.

Delany didn’t have the  money.

Most students at Hostos live in households that make less than $30,000 per year. Adding material costs to a $350 tuition hike for the semester, many wondered how they could afford to stay in school.

City University of New York cut $44 million in state and city aid for the 2008-2009 school year, and proposed to cut $10 million to community colleges for the upcoming year. To offset the budget cuts, tuition has increased this year (and is expected to increase another 15 percent next year). Programs are being cut and students are left without the financial means to support a higher education. With all these budget pressures, even Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s pledge to infuse $50 million in the CUNY system would not be enough to help students like Delany.

Programs for CUNY’s brightest, like the Student Leadership Academy and Registered Nursing program, are feeling the cuts. But, Councilman Charles Barron, who serves as chair of the Higher Education Committee, claims the money is there.

“How can they say there’s no money when CUNY has a $2.6 billion budget?” he said. “They are just not spending it on community colleges.”

Barron urges students to demand the money they deserve.

“No generation has ever progressed without a student movement,” he said. “It has never happened.  The money is there. You have to show that you are a priority.”

Armed with skills she learned at the Student Leadership Academy in the past year, Delany did just that. She became an advocate for nursing students at Hostos. She wrote a petition to the Student Senate asking for funds, and gained support for other initiatives from students and faculty.

Although the administration has yet to come to an agreement on the proposed increase, Delany said her experience with the Student Leadership Academy gave her the confidence to advocate for the nursing students.  Through workshops and conferences, Delany learned how to make effective arguments.

The director of the Student Leadership Academy, Jason Libfeld, said hurdles like the one Delany is facing as a nursing student are commonplace at Hostos.

A graduate of Columbia University’s Master of Fine Arts program, Libfield left his career as a teacher two years ago to establish this program that would help develop the highest achieving students into leaders through workshops, conferences and community service.

To be an ambassador with the Student Leadership Association students had to demonstrate academic excellence with a grade point average above 3.4, commit to at least 40 hours a semester of community service and be willing to participate in conferences upstate and New Jersey.

Most important, he hoped to create a sense of community otherwise missing at Hostos.

“The first thing I asked for is mailboxes,” he said. “I wanted to make sure they came back to the office. If they had email I would never see them.”

Despite being tucked away in what they call the broom closet, Libfeld and his students have created one of the most successful student associations in the CUNY system.

Major achievements include providing a student representative at the World Trade Center Memorial with President Barack Obama, and with Mayor Bloomberg during a memorable trip upstate at the Mock Student Senate meeting.

The Model Senate provides a forum for students to discuss real issues currently being raised in the State Senate. The annual conference is held in Albany, and requires hours of preparation. Students who do well can carve a path towards a political career.

Sandra May Flowers, whose motto is “opportunities quickly diminish,” secured an intership with Councilman Barron after her first year participating in the  mock senate.

The professional workshops cost an average of $2,000 per  month and may be the first program Libfeld is forced to eliminate.

Samantha Jackson’s experience shows how important the workshops can be. She worked hard to earn the grades she needed in high school to be accepted into a four-year college. But her mother could  not afford the tuition, which forced her to attend Hostos.

“At first, it hurt to go to Hostos with the grades I worked so hard for,” said Jackson, a Jamaican immigrant..

But she reached out to the Academy and learned about the Jose E. Serrano Scholarship for Diplomatic Studies, a program that moves students from Hostos into Columbia University for a Bachelor of Arts followed by a two-year graduate program at Columbia Unviersity’s School of International and Public Affairs.

Jackson was accepted to the program, which requires students to maintain a 3.0 GPA.

Jackson, now finishing her degree at Columbia, attributes her success to the Hostos programs that are facing budget cuts in the coming year. She says the Student leadership Academy’s emphasis on community service was what she was looking for, training in the field and insight from professionals.

During her time in Hostos, Jackson was one of many students who supported a small increase to the cost of tuition in an effort to attract a desirable faculty with promise of higher pay.

“The school could not keep educators because they could not pay them enough in today’s bad economy,” said Jackson. “A small tuition hike could have resolved a lot of issues. We could have raised the money that the city and state were not providing the school.”

However, according to Barron, students are fooling themselves if they think a tuition hike would mean more resources for students.

“They bought the Kool-Aid from the administration,” he said. “They believe that if they increase tuition the school will then invest that money back into the programs.”

Barron points to the $60 billion city budget and $131 billion state budget, claiming that it is up to the city to allocate appropriate funds for community colleges.

“We can build Yankee Stadium?” he said. “We can build the Mets a new stadium, but we can’t provide money for CUNY students?”

Despite the proposed budget cuts, and the continued financial stresses the students of the Student Leadership Academy are facing, they remain optimistic about the program’s future.

Libfeld says one of his proudest moments with the Student Leadership Academy was planting 900 trees in one day at St. Mary’s park in the Bronx. He also remembers the day he took the students to Isabella Nursing Home. One of the students was so excited to be there, she talked until one of the senior citizens fell asleep.

He and the students are resigned to continue on even if they lose workshop and field trip money.

At least outreach would be saved. It costs nothing.

Something Libfeld and his students don’t mind.

“If we have to go back to bare bones, then we’ll do that,” he said. “No matter what we will always have community service.”