New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s 2019-20 budget proposal released on Tuesday, includes new regulations and more stringent oversight for New York’s for-profit colleges.
In its March 2018 report “Grading New York’s Colleges,” The Century Foundation (TCF) presented evidence that New York’s for-profit schools had displayed a pattern of failing to meaningfully serve their students, most notably African-American and first-generation students. As reported in Diverse, many for-profit schools show high default rates on student loans and little increase in students’ earning potential.
TCF is a New York City-based public policy think tank. In addition to presenting the report, for more than a year TCF in coalition with other advocacy and legal organizations has led a campaign for stronger protections for New York students.
“I am excited to see the Governor putting out this proposal and leading in the demonstration of what states can do — stepping in where the federal government is stepping back in protecting students,” said Yan Cao, TCF fellow and author of “Grading New York’s Colleges.”
“That’s been the framework for The Century Foundation’s work in New York State.”
Cao noted that at the national level 99 percent of student complaints about fraud at higher education institutions are against for-profit colleges, which enroll a small portion of the country’s students.
In New York, TCF released testimony with its partner organization Empire Justice pointing out that even though for-profit colleges in New York enroll only about four percent of higher education students, they’re accounting for 41 percent of student loan defaults when looking at default numbers five years out.
