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Q&A
Council member inquires about CUNY's outreach for the New York Opportunity Promise Scholarship
1:15:59
·
3 min
Council Member Eric Dinowitz questions CUNY representatives about their outreach efforts for the newly funded New York Opportunity Promise Scholarship. CUNY officials explain their plans for promoting the program and building the necessary infrastructure to support it.
- CUNY is preparing marketing, communications, and advisor training for the scholarship program
- The program targets students aged 25-55 for community college degrees in high-demand fields
- CUNY had to wait for budget approval before actively promoting the program
Eric Dinowitz
1:15:59
Thank you.
1:16:00
In the fiscal twenty twenty six state adopted budget included $18,800,000 for the New York opportunity promise scholarship which will cover the cost of tuition, fees, books for community colleges students ages 25 to 55 pursuing select associate degrees in high demand fields.
1:16:19
So you had mentioned this or or you referenced this earlier.
1:16:24
Can you talk more about the the specific outreach you're doing to ensure eligible New Yorkers are aware of this program?
1:17:35
You're promoting this at the campus level, but wouldn't some of the outreach be at the high school level?
1:18:10
And does that include the goals we have in the council, for example, and your our shared goals of the the fee waivers.
1:18:18
Are are those programs gonna be aligned?
1:18:28
Right?
Lincoln Restler
1:16:32
Yes.
Alicia Alvero
1:16:35
So very timely as we organized a really big team meeting specifically for this which involves marketing and communications and advisors.
1:16:47
We've been working very closely with all of the provosts preemptively identifying all of the programs so that all of the campuses are ready to kind of start marketing and advertising these programs.
1:17:02
It involves it's multifaceted because it's not just about marketing and promotion.
1:17:07
It's about making sure we have the right infrastructure, ensuring that we're collecting the right data because there's a lot of reporting requirements for the state.
1:17:15
The advisors, getting the academic advisors well trained.
1:17:19
But we are very excited to roll out the publicity for it.
1:17:24
But it's the infrastructure part that we're really working on and the campuses working on the promotion at the individual campus level for the programs.
1:18:58
The program, the criteria is 25 and older for the opportunity programs.
1:19:05
So probably less of a focus with the high schools because it's for the older students.
Félix Matos Rodríguez
1:17:43
Well, challenge has been that until the budget was adopted, which was last week, right, you couldn't be out there promoting a program that you were not sure was going to be approved, right?
1:17:54
So we've been building the infrastructure, assuming the funding was gonna be there, right?
1:18:00
And now that the funding is there, we can sort of be using, leveraging all our assets, include the links with the public schools.
1:18:23
Well, so remember, for the students, I mean, that will begin in the fall, they already applied.
1:18:29
So this is people that are gonna be part of the summer.
1:18:32
So we will have to sort of see this is in flux, right?
1:18:38
So we just found out that the funding was there last week, right?
1:18:42
So we'll be happy to come back to you and give you a better sense of that.
1:18:46
We've been planning and getting ready.
1:18:48
Assuming that we're gonna get promotions.
1:18:50
There's gonna be interest for it.
1:18:52
All of the fine tweaks of the partnerships I think will be sort of worked out through the summer.