12 APRIL 13, 2017 RIDGEWOOD TIMES WWW.QNS.COM EDITORIAL Onward & upward with free college Supreme Court Justice Louis THE HOT TOPIC STORY: SUV runs off the road and crashed into a pedestrian on an Astoria street SUMMARY: An SUV ran off of an Astoria road and into a pedestrian who was walking down the street. REACH: 21,122 (as of 4/10/17) COMMENTS: ESTABLISHED 1908 Co-Publishers VICTORIA SCHNEPS-YUNIS JOSHUA SCHNEPS Editor-in-Chief ROBERT POZARYCKI Classifi ed Manager DEBORAH CUSICK Assistant Classifi ed Manager MARLENE RUIZ Reporter ANTHONY GIUDICE © 2017 SCHNEPS NY MEDIA, LLC. General Publication Offi ce: 38-15 Bell Blvd., Bayside, NY 11361 TELEPHONE: 1-718-821-7500/7501/7502/7503 FAX: 1-718-224-5441 E-MAIL: [email protected] WEB SITE: www.qns.com ON TWITTER @ridgewoodtimes PUBLISHED EVERY THURSDAY FOR 108 YEARS COMPOSITION RESPONSIBILITY: Accuracy in receiving ads over the telephone cannot be guaranteed. This newspaper is responsible for only one incorrect insertion and only for that portion of the ad in which the error appears. It is the responsibility of the advertiser to make sure copy does not contravene the Consumer Protection Law or any other requirement.TIMES NEWSWEEKLY Is Listed With The Standard Rate & Data And Is A Member Of The New York Press Association SNAPS EARLY SPRING ON THE LIC WATERFRONT PHOTO BY MELANIE POZARYCKI Send us your photos of Queens and you could see them online or in our paper! Submit them to us tag @queenscourier on Instagram, Facebook page, tweeting @QNS or by emailing [email protected] (subject: Queens Snaps). Brandeis once referred to states as “laboratories of democracy,” and without question, New York is one of the largest and greatest of these laboratories that the nation has ever known. It comes as no surprise that our latest experiment, providing tuition-free four-year college to qualifi ed students, tackles one of the greatest problems young Americans face today: staggering student debt. The Excelsior Scholarship will allow students from families whose annual income is less than $125,000 to attend a four-year public university (SUNY or CUNY) free of cost. No other state has anything like it; this bold venture that Governor Andrew Cuomo and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders introduced earlier this year in Long Island City is a real game-changer that has the potential to truly help generations of New Yorkers succeed academically and fi nancially. Nearly six in 10 college students attending a four-year school in New York State are in debt, according to a report from The Institute for College Access and Success. The average college student in the Empire State owes just under $30,000 for their four-year education. Not every college graduate makes signifi cant money upon graduation either. Glassdoor, a popular job search engine, reported that the entry level job in the New York City area has an average annual salary of about $32,000. Factor in living expenses, and it can take many college graduates more than a decade beyond graduation to pay off their debts. The Excelsior Scholarship has the potential to prevent thousands of college students across the state from falling into debt, giving these students the opportunity to pump millions of dollars back into the local economy. They can also start saving funds toward making major purchases such as buying a home or car. Critics of the program fear this will drive New York students away from private universities statewide. New York state provides to students of private colleges and universities more than $253 million in aid annually. That aid isn’t going away, but we believe the state should increase aid beyond the Excelsior Scholarship as much as possible to ensure that New York’s undergrads can aff ord to attend the college of their choice. CUNY, once upon a time, off ered free four-year college to New York City students; that practice came to an end during the fi scal crisis of the 1970s. By no means is that a harbinger of the Excelsior Scholarship’s future; New York City had far worse fi nancial problems that were caused by factors beyond its education system. The Excelsior Scholarship, however, can become the national model that helps eradicate our nation’s student debt problem. We wish it success; the future of this country might well be depending on it.
RT04132017
To see the actual publication please follow the link above