October 10, 2006

Private Colleges in New York Get State Aid to Add Senators' Portraits to Guidebooks

At least a dozen state senators in New York have been getting free election-year publicity from the state’s private colleges after using taxpayer dollars to publish college guidebooks, each with one of the lawmakers’ photographs on the cover.

The Times Union, a newspaper in Albany, N.Y., first reported that Republican lawmakers had diverted tens of thousands of dollars from a special-projects fund—known as the General Legislative Operations Programs, or GLOP, account—to the Commission on Independent Colleges and Universities. The private-college association then used the money to print special editions of a guide to New York’s private colleges featuring the sponsoring senator’s photograph and to distribute the books to high schools, community colleges, and libraries in the senator’s home district.

The newspaper reported that the independent-college group was given $89,500 in GLOP funds in two election years, 2004 and 2006, and since 2003 has received an additional $189,500 in earmarks for the senatorial guidebooks.

The Commission on Independent Colleges and Universities is led by Abraham M. Lackman, a former top fiscal aide to the Senate majority leader, Joseph L. Bruno. Mr. Lackman has been credited with raising the college-lobbying group’s profile in Albany and with winning greater state support for private colleges (The Chronicle, November 19, 2004).

Comments

1. This posting exacerbates misimpressions left by a recent story in the Albany Times Union that puts the Albany-based Commission on Independent Colleges and Universities in the middle of a long-simmering fight between the newspaper and the New York State Legislature about the use of legislator-directed funding. As written, the story uses a collection of individual points to suggest untoward intent where there is none. Further, it leaves inaccurate perceptions about cIcu’s work to promote college readiness and financial aid awareness over many, many years.

   The story’s false conclusions result in part from the selective use of information provided during a near-hour-long conversation with cIcu’s president and the inclusion of additional information about which cIcu representatives were not given an opportunity to comment.

   Blog readers may be interested in these facts about the long-standing Outreach Program publications and their sources of funding:

   • cIcu produces two major publications annually, one in the spring—Your College Search—and the other in the fall—Affording College—to help students, their families, school administrators, teachers and counselors, learn about higher education, the admission process and financial aid. These publications are distributed free of charge in bulk to high schools, public libraries and community colleges, upon request and at select college fairs.

   • Information in Your College Search and Affording College is applicable to all colleges and universities.

   • Since the 1970s, cIcu has requested and received support for outreach activities from a variety of state funding sources, including direct appropriations and sponsorship support from individual legislators, the New York Lottery, the Higher Education Services Corporation, and the office of the State Comptroller. Additional support for Your College Search and Affording College has come from banks and lending institutions.

   • cIcu has not, does not, and will not, produce or distribute legislator-supported publications after June in any election year.

   — Terri Standish-Kuon, cIcu    Oct 11, 05:19 PM    #

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