Queens lawmakers voted Tuesday to make resurrecting the Peter F. Vallone Scholarship their top priority this year after the city-funded program that aided CUNY students was cut in 2011 for politically motivated reasons.
“Kids were hurt by a petty act of retribution, and it’s time to rectify that injustice,” said former Councilman Peter Vallone Jr., who claims then-Speaker Christine Quinn slashed the $6 million program named for his father after he opposed a push to rename the Queensboro Bridge.
Each year since 1998, the merit-based scholarship went to about 15,000 students who graduated from city high schools, regardless of immigration status, said Vallone Sr., who joined supporters in City Hall Thursday to call for its reinstatement by 2015.
Recipients who maintained a B-average saved up to $1,250 in tuition each year.
“This is the first real Dream Act,” the former Council speaker said. “Please restore it because it simply is the right thing to do.”
Legislators say they stand a chance under the city’s new administration, especially if they rally support in other boroughs.
With all the issues the borough has, this is the Machine's top priority?
33 comments:
Why don't you support helping children go to college crappy?
A private scholarship should be supported by the leadership of the community
Alma
Pistilli
Vallones
[add your favorite here]
These people make money off our community and should be respectful of us and give some of it back.
Why the hell do we take food from our kids mouths to pay taxes for a Vallone legacy?
Why don't I support helping children go to college? Because that's not the function of government. The kids can get part time jobs and pay their own way through CUNY, like I and scores of others did. The government should be concerned with providing services to its taxpayers. There's trash all along every shopping corridor in the borough, there's sewers backing up, there's dying street trees all over the place, but we have money to throw at people attending CUNY?
Didn't CUNY used to be free because the city paid for it?
Without paying taxes minimum wage pays $8 an hour? That's 15 hours a week just to cover tuition, though probably closer to 20 after taxes. Add in money for textbooks, food and housing and that part time job has to be a full time job at least.
20 years ago before taxes it took 11 hours of minimum wage to pay for CUNY tuition. Go back to 1976 and it took less than 8 hours per week of minimum wage to pay for tuition (again pretax). Before that all you had to pay for were books, food, and rent. A hell of a lot easier.
Crappy you were able to afford to pay your way through college because the working age people at the time subsidized CUNY enough that it was affordable. Why don't you intend to pay it forward?
I lived at home as 90% of CUNY students do now, so food and rent were covered. I did not get a dime of tuition assistance, and minimum wage was something like 1/4 of what it is now. My taxes are already subsidizing CUNY education, so I am not sure what the hell you are talking about. I don't think asking students for $3,000 a semester is out of line. Most of them already get financial aid anyway.
Tuition used to be less than 400 hours of minimum wage work. Now it's twice that. You might be subsidizing CUNY, but less than you're parents did. So today's students cover a heavier load than you had to.
If you're living at home, your parents are most likely helping to pay for your tuition, and a minimim wage job can still make up the difference.
And if it can't, then perhaps minimum wage needs to be increased and not handouts from the City Council.
The Council's role is to allocate money for paving roads, fixing up parks, getting kids out of trailers. Not this.
ah, more handouts for the tweeded. everything is a "right" these days that the government is expected to pay for. paying your own way is a thing of the past.
since the libs love to whine about low pay and lack of job availability for college graduates, why would a scholarship for college be necessary?
> Queens Crapper said...
If you're living at home, your parents are most likely helping to pay for your tuition, and a minimim wage job can still make up the difference.
So CUNY is only for people living with their parents who are paying for some or all of the cost of tuition?
Unless you plan on doubling minimum wage so people today have it as easy as you did...
Why isn't CUNY accessibility something the City Council should worry about?
Everyone should pay taxes to pay for your roads, but not educating the next generation?
Generation greed strikes again. Live fat off the generation before them, screw the ones to come. Disgusting.
I'm not a member of generation greed, so there goes that theory. I also never said CUNY was only for people living at home, I said most CUNY undergrads are doing so.
Once again, our taxes already pay for CUNY. If you can't afford to pay full time tuition, go part time. Lots of people have.
CUNY is accessible for people who want to work for it. They can even attend CUNY and emerge debt free. Most attendees have the majority of their tuition paid for via financial aid. A scholarship is not necessary.
P.S. Financial aid is also funded by tax dollars!
What years were you at CUNY crappy? Which school?
My daughter goes to Community College in NYC. I own my home outright but after supporting my family I don't have much savings except for retirement accounts. My income is average and I'm self employed. Luckily the financial aid formula exempts your primary residence and retirement income. Financial aid pays for everything including transportation and lunches. My daughter will even get a check cut to her at the end of the year for a few dollars that wasn't used. (Federal and state grants) What a country! (and I was born here in NYC and so were my parents in case you were wondering) The money I hate seeing wasted is the money that politicians throw away just because they can.
Seems you're not gonna win too many friends on this one, Crappy.
I think it's important to draw the distinction between impartially determined merit-based scholarships for some high-need areas of study (like the Sophie Davis program), which is the govt. investing in developing its intellectual resources, vs. the need-based scholarships, which essentially tax the "too-poor to attend school" so that the "just well-off enough" can. That second kind is deeply unfair. As Crappy mentioned, minimum wage raises would be a more fair approach (not necessarily "good", but more fair.)
Can it be that the Queens Democrats are helping Pete stage a comeback?
More total bullshit from this city. Tax payers should not be flipping a bill to pay for kid's education.
You want to really look into something and that includes CUNY, how about all of the bloated salaries for a million Vice-Presidents and Deans of CUNY and other schools, which causes tuition to increase like crazy. No such thing existed when I went to college and I went to a state school. There were not all of these overbloated salaries and made up positions and tuition was more affordable.
Factor in that college is not for everyone and the fact that with so many colleges and so few jobs, many will be sitting on the sidelines with no job prospect and a huge amount of debt.
Like many others systems, the college system needs overhauled, especially in NYC.
Sorry but I think fixing up Flushing Meadows and the Rockaways are much more important.
Sorry but I think fixing up Flushing Meadows and the Rockaways are much more important.
Um no. Educationing the next generation is way more important, not to mention way cheaper
Well the government should help people get more educated. The best governments have a well educated society.
Throwing money at people who don't need it is not educating them.
If you want a well-educated society, then close most of CUNY. A lot of it is like a remedial high school.
Since the Vallone scholarship is not needs based, it's a waste of money. Next.
Let's face it, Crapper, people want everything paid for these days. Gone are the days when people expected they would have to work to get the things they need, like a college education.
This started with the Astoria Civic then became yet another taxpayer subsidized prop for the glory and power of that family that has not only vandalized the community but sucked the blood out of what was once a strong and proud community - now a laughing stock of Queens and the city.
Scholarships are fine. A Vallone scholarship is fine. But it should be supported by the movers and shakers that are bloodsucking every bit of life from that community.
More than half of CUNY students attend for free today, so it would appear that giving more than $1K to people for education who already have it 100% paid is a ridiculous waste of money.
I spit at the name Vallone.
They have destroyed Astoria.
An Astorian.
I would not study at CUNY for anything in the world. Search a private college/university if you want real education!
I think the problem here is not CUNY or really college but attitude.
In the days of Boss Tweed, its true that the machine owned newspapers and did everything they could to muzzle competition, but there was a sense of real bonding with the public.
There was an understanding of, say, Al Smith of the streets because they grew up there and also felt the same problems and challenges that their followers face every day.
Many of the old bosses would pay for something for a person of need out of their pocket.
Today its different.
There is a callousness, an entitlement, that has slowly taken hold of our leadership.
There is an arrogance out there that would be alien to the old boys.
It would be unthinkable for a Boss, like Crowley, to raise their family anywhere outside of the Old Ward.
It would be impossible that an important family like the Vallones, to name something like a scholarship that honored a former civic leader in their family, and not have the boys pitch in.
Today? Not only do they take and take and take and never give, but they set up something like this that is just another line item.
Where does the money come from?
By robbing another program and another person that benefits from that program.
It is unthinkable, in the old days, that the machine robs their constituents so they can look good and polish their name.
Sure you can make a case for the Vallone Scholarship from public money, but to do so you will have to make someone in the public pay for it.
What it becomes is a shell game to make you look good.
And people are not stupid.
As any old boss from the neighborhood will tell you, the public has a long memory.
As a CCNY alum who had a Vallone Scholarship, I take exception to Crappy's argument. Unlike many schoalrships, Vallone is colorblind and is entirely based on having a good GPA. That alone makes it worth preserving.
It's colorblind, sure. But there's no means testing for it which is just plain stupid.
I don't understand why I should have to help some illegals kids pay for their college..... They were not suppose to get born here to begin with! All assistance should go to our own citizens children, not illegals kids!
GO HOME JR...... Nobody wants to hear you. We are sick of your shit. Especially your sarcastic remarks about certain former NYPD officials. You never know who's in the audience. Go ride your bike.
That you name a scholarship fund after your family, then expect the city to pay for it teaches a good lesson to tomorrow's generation.
The Vallones, their community board and their Astoria Civic have no respect for Astoria.
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