According to panelist Margaret Clancy, director of the College Savings Initiative at Washington University’s Center for Social Development, it is not enough anymore for K – 12 students to be financially “literate.” To break the cycle of college-going rates being so directly tied to demographics, said Clancy, we must as a nation concentrate on a broader goal of financial “capability.”

Financial “capability,” in Clancy’s view, is both a step beyond financial literacy and a leap beyond simply having the wherewithal to pay for whatever bills may come one’s way.

“One cannot achieve financial capability without first having achieved financial literacy,” said Clancy. “But financial capability also means having access to safe financial products that are accessible, affordable and easy to use. This access constitutes a certain financial inclusion that allows a young person, and their parents, to be confident that they can achieve their life dreams, without going broke in the process.”

Clancy’s call for financial capability offered a ray of hope in an otherwise disquieting session that focused on the many barriers to college attainment in the U.S., and the very low high school graduation rate that squeezes the college pipeline before it reaches the end of 12th grade.

Striking in the clarity of his remarks on the challenges in the K – 12 system was panelist Dan Domenech, executive director of the American Association of School Administrators, the single largest group of individuals who run public schools and school systems across the country.

“If financial literacy is a necessary step on the path to financial capability,” then we have a real problem,” said Domenech, a former superintendent himself with more than three decades of experience in K – 12 education. “While most teachers are familiar with the term ‘financial literacy,’ their own personal knowledge of it is not well-defined, nor do they rate themselves highly on either the topic itself or their ability to teach it.”

A third panelist, Angela Baier, chief marketing officer of Colorado-based College Invest, added that more than three-fourths of parents in the Rocky Mountain State acknowledge that they are their children’s primary source of personal finance education.

However, Baier said, Colorado parents also note that they feel “less prepared to give their teens advice about investing than they do about sex.”

(Full disclosure: I was the fourth panelist at this event, and I feel ill-prepared to talk to my teens about either investing or sex.)

What is the level of “financial capability” in your family? What is your view on how this problem can be addressed by all the stakeholders in higher education, including parents?

Anthony Rosado was in the National Honor Society when he graduated from the Rochester City School District. Now a freshman at Monroe Community College, Rosado, a young Latino male, says he knows he’s bucking the odds.

“I was seeing others around me – my friends – and they made some bad decisions,” he says. “Most of them aren’t here today. I learned from that.”

Rosado, who is planning a career in broadcasting, enrolled in “Doorway to Success,” a program that MCC offers to incoming African American and Hispanic male students. It begins with an orientation to college life, but the meat of the program is an ongoing peer-based support system intended to prevent the young men from either dropping out or flunking out in their first year.

There are dozens of theories about why colleges have difficulty attracting and retaining minority students, especially young males – everything from the students not wanting to be perceived as “acting white,” to campus culture shock. But college admissions counselors have found that many of these students have something in common. Sometimes referred to as “underserved” students, they’re capable of college-level work even though they didn’t perform well in high school. And a support system helps them adjust and to stay in college.

The African American and Hispanic male students in MCC's Doorway to Success program support each other, says Albert Simmons. PHOTO BY JEFF MARINI

For example, African American and Hispanic males frequently face a challenging first year in college. Anywhere from 30 to 40 percent won’t return for their sophomore year, compared to the national average of 15 to 17 percent for the general population, according to a number of different studies.

MCC’s Doorway to Success program provides career guidance, counseling, financial aid assistance, and assists in setting goals. Adult males of color provide much of the support in group and individual settings.

“I am the male of my household, and I am going to be the first person in my family to graduate from college,” Rosado, 18, says. “It just didn’t work out for the others who have been here before me.”

Rosado wants to set an example, he says, for his younger brothers. He knows the temptations and risks they face, he says, and he wants them to have opportunities for success.

“I have to set the bar high,” he says. “I have to do this for them.”

Albert Simmons readily admits that he was one of those kids that his friend Anthony Rosado describes.

Anthony Rosado, a freshman at MCC, wants to be the first member of his family to graduate from college. PHOTO BY JEFF MARINI

“I dropped out of high school,” Simmons, 37, says. “It wasn’t that I couldn’t learn; I just didn’t apply myself. I was one of those kids who made those bad decisions.”

At least one of those decisions was so bad it landed Simmons in prison, he says. But the MCC sophomore is now planning to finish his education at SUNY Brockport and to pursue a career in social work.

Rosado and Simmons are Doorway to Success peer leaders. They assist other students in the program with everything from finding their way around campus to helping them change classes. They appreciate the emphasis the program places on supporting male students because, they say, it helps to keep them focused. And they can speak more freely among their male peers, they say, about common life experiences and challenges.

“We all support each other,” Simmons says. “We want the same success for each other that we want for ourselves. And we want it to go beyond here and into our futures, so we can continue to help each other out.”

In its second year, Doorway to Success, which was modeled after a similar program at New York’s City College, is still a work in progress. It may be too soon to say how much of an impact the program is having, says Ann Topping, MCC‘s dean of students.

MCC data shows, however, that six percent more students from the Doorway to Success program – compared to those who didn’t enroll – returned in the 2009 fall semester from the prior spring semester. Topping expects that number to increase as the program is refined and becomes better known. Offering programs like Doorway to Success, she says, is another way to attract students to the college. It says to students that the college is relevant, she says, and recognizes their needs.

Increasing support systems for students during their first four semesters greatly improves student performance, says Ann Topping, MCC's dean of students. PHOTO BY JEFF MARINI

State Senator Toby Ann Stavisky recently announced increased funding for these types of programs. Similar to Doorway to Success, many use some form of mentoring to improve retention rates for minority students at risk of not making it through their first year.

Roberts, who wants to become a lawyer, says her transcripts weren’t perfect. But she knew she could do college-level work.

“I think it’s very important for students who come from situations like I do to have this kind of opportunity,” she says. “I worked all throughout high school. That wasn’t an option because my family needed my help. But my grades suffered a little.”

Roberts has never considered dropping out of college. But she says she understands why college is challenging for so many of her African American and Hispanic male peers.

Some of the challenges are more easily addressed than others, says Sean Bennett, director of RIT’s North Star Center for Academic Success and Cultural Affairs.

“Sometimes they may be in the top of their class, but they may not be at the same level as their college peers because they weren’t exposed to the same resources,” he says.

Minority male students are less likely to know how to work together in teams, Bennett says.

“They are slow to get engaged and they tend to sit on the sidelines too long,” he says.

Students in community colleges face an even tougher challenge. Since most of those students do not live on campus, many young African American and Hispanic males find themselves torn between two worlds. In one instance, says MCC’s Topping, a Doorway to Success peer leader saw one of his students on a neighborhood street corner. Concerned, the peer leader approached him.

“The student wouldn’t even acknowledge him,” Topping says. “He just didn’t feel like he could.”

The report, called Race Matters Impact of the 2010-2011 Executive Budget Proposals, seeks to show how cuts to state programs would fall disproportionately on ethnic and racial minorities. It also proposes possible solutions to fill the budget gap.

Bob Cohen, policy director for the Public Policy and Education Fund, and an author of the report, said although all the cuts mentioned in the report have an impact on ethnic and racial inequalities, the most drastic effects would be felt in the area of schools and education.

The Public Policy and Education Fund of New York is the research and public education affiliate of Citizen Action of New York.

The report says a proposed $1.4 billion school aid cut would affect students of color and those who have limited English proficiency disproportionately because they tend to live in school districts that are more dependant on state aid. A $1.4 billion cut was approved by Senate resolution on March 22, while the Assembly would restore $600 million in school aid under its budget resolution, adopted on March 24.

Cohen, talking about the Assembly and Senate budget resolutions, said the Assembly has a slightly lesser impact on racial and ethnic disparity, but both resolutions still fall short of what could be done to lessen the impact of drastic cuts on poor communities.

Marina Marcou-O’Malley, a policy analyst for the Alliance for Quality Education and co-author of the report, talked at a press conference about the cuts being proposed to school spending.

“These proposed cuts are in high-needs districts. This means that school districts that need the most help in ensuring that every student has access to their constitutionally granted right to a sound, basic education and the opportunity to learn will lose the most programs, the most access,” said O’Malley.

She said the cut per classroom would be $11,677 statewide compared to a cut of around $2,000 to $4,000 per classroom for wealthier school districts where the proportion of students of color is generally much lower. On top of this, said O’Malley, 64 percent of districts expect they will be increase property taxes.

Paul Webster, community outreach coordinator for New York State United Teachers union, said the Race Matters report is important because “it really depicts a stark future for communities of color.”

Webster said cuts to high-needs districts in education would be particularly harmful because of the loss of teaching staff. He cited Buffalo as an example because the group predicts the city’s school district will lose 1,100 teachers and educators — one-third of its professional force.

He also said Albany would lose 113 teachers and educators, Yonkers up to 1,000, Syracuse 211, and Brentwood in Suffolk County, which has the largest population of Hispanic students outside of New York City of around 15,000 students, would lose 525.

“These cuts are not just numbers on a piece of paper, this is the future of kids in our state that we’re talking about,” said Citizen Action Executive Director Karen Scharff.

There is also a proposal in the Executive Budget to cut state funding for after-school programs from $28 million to $17 million. The report says after-school programs have a particularly strong impact on raising achievement among low-income children and children of color.

Anne Pope, northeast regional director for the NAACP, speaks at the release of the Race Matters report from Citizen Action New York. The report examines how Executive Budget proposals could affect ethnic and racial disparities. Photo by Andrew Beam, The Legislative Gazette.

“President Obama has stated that education is the key to success. What the heck are we doing? Are we providing success for our children or are we going to continue to put these budget cuts and expect them to be successful for us?” asked Analusette Shaello-Johnson, municipal youth bureau director for the city of Binghamton.

The report also points to cuts in higher education and how they might cause ethnic and racial disparity.

For SUNY schools, the Executive Budget proposes a $95 million cut; for CUNY $48 million; and a reduction of base aid to SUNY and CUNY community colleges of $285 per full-time equivalent student, the report says.

According to the report, SUNY and CUNY combined educate roughly three-fifths of all college students of color in the state. As of the fall of 2008, 28.3 percent of CUNY students were Hispanic, 28.2 percent were African-American and 17 percent were Asian-Pacific American.

The report shows that the Professional Staff Congress, which represents CUNY professors, found that 45 percent of CUNY community college students come from households with annual incomes of less than $20,000.

The Public Higher Education Empowerment and Innovation Act (S.6607-a/A.9707-a) is also criticized in the report. One part of the bill would allow tuition increases to be set independently by SUNY and CUNY boards, instead of by the Legislature.

The report says that, even with a proposed cap on tuition hikes, there could still be up to a 10 percent increase if enacted. The potential increase, combined with no commitment to increase or maintain aid from the state, could have the effect of “squeezing out the low-income students and students of color who attend these institutions,” according to the report.

The report also says that the proposed tuition cap — 2.5 times the rolling average of the higher education price index, a measure of inflation rate in U.S. higher education — does not apply to differential tuition for specific academic programs. The report finds that the lack of a cap on differential tuition could push poorer students out of certain majors that cost more to offer, such as science or medicine.

The Student Assembly of the State University of New York, which has one seat on the SUNY Board of Trustees, has asked for a cap on differential tuition and a decrease to the tuition-increase cap.

“Differential tuition would exacerbate existing and persistent inequalities of race, gender and class. It was to challenge those inequalities that many of us entered into education in the first place,” the report says, quoting budget testimony given by Barbara Bowen, president of the Professional Staff Congress.

Phillip H. Smith, president of United University Professions, said the Senate resolution on the budget asks for an additional $15.4 million in cuts to “universitywide programs” that aren’t specified. The Executive Budget also proposes a 12 percent cut to opportunity programs such as SEEK/CD (Search for Education, Elevation, and Knowledge/ College Discovery), EOP (Educational Opportunity Program) and HEOP (Higher Education Opportunity Program).

“In the past, EOP and HEOP are two premier opportunity programs especially for people of color that have been cut to the bone. Just this past year over 17,000 students were turned away,” said Smith.

Among health care measures, the report finds a “mixed bag” of proposals that could both positively and negatively affect communities of color. The Assembly’s budget resolutions reject $126.3 million of the governor’s proposed health care spending reductions, while the Senate accepted the governor’s $1.9 billion cut.

The report approves of the Executive Budget proposal to regulate health insurance rate increases. The budget would require insurers to spend 85 percent of premium dollars on health care that it says would help hold down rates.

According to the report, African-American and Hispanic workers are less likely to have employer-sponsored insurance. Regulating health insurance rates, says the report, would help those groups by easing the burden on those who need to buy into Healthy New York, small business insurance coverage or the direct-pay market.

Cohen said that there is a good chance this year there will be a re-regulation of health insurance rates by the Legislature.

The report is also critical of the plan to reduce charity care funding by $70 million. The program is directed at assisting uninsured, disproportionately low-income people and people of color in hospitals. The report suggests restoring the cut and instituting greater accountability to make sure hospitals use the money appropriately to serve the uninsured.

Among other health care measures, the report also disapproves of a $507,600 proposed cut to school-based health centers, centers located on-site that collectively serve more than 200,000 underserved youth in rural, urban and suburban schools throughout the state.

The report also offers alternatives to Executive Budget proposals. It recommends reducing the stock transfer tax rebate by 20 percent. Instead of stock brokers receiving a full rebate on individual stocks transferred, the state would only rebate 80 percent back to brokers. New Yorkers for Fiscal Fairness have said this could raise $3.2 billion annually in state revenues.

There is also a proposal for a one-time tax on bankers’ cash bonuses over $50,000, with the report saying the tax could raise $6 billion to $10 billion, discourage the rewarding of short-term risk-taking and “encourage firms to maintain adequate capital reserves by tying employees’ fates to those of shareholders.”

Anne Pope, northeast regional director for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said “this report points to the fact that our job is not over, in fact our job is going to be a little harder.”

“The report highlights that [while] the nation and state are led by people of color, the overall condition of our communities remains extraordinarily difficult and many find themselves in crisis,” continued Pope.

“Unfortunately, we’re in a political dynamic where people think government programs are bad,” said Cohen.

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