NYC NOW - May 10, 2024: Midday News

Episode Date: May 10, 2024

Small-scale graduation ceremonies have kicked off at Columbia University after the main commencement was canceled due to pro-Palestinian campus protests. In other news, New York City has installed new changing tables in nearly all public park bathrooms, improving convenience for parents. Plus, New York State now requires high school students to complete a financial aid application or formally opt out by graduation, following a FAFSA redesign aimed at simplifying the process for tuition aid applications. Despite these improvements, delays have been reported. WNYC’s Michael Hill discusses these challenges with State Senator Andrew Gounardes, the bill's sponsor, and high school senior Adiba Salbia.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Friday, May 10th. Here's the midday news from Michael Hill. Small-scale graduation ceremonies are officially underway at Columbia University, kicking off a week of celebrations for the students and for their parents. The Ivy League School said last week it would cancel its main commencement ceremony, and instead prioritize ceremonies for individual schools after weeks of pro-Palestinian protest on campus. Today, Columbia will hold ceremonies for the schools of professional studies, social work, and climate.

But access to the Morningside Heights campus remains restricted, and at the invitation of Columbia, the NYPD is keeping an on-campus presence through the end of festivities next week. New York City parents can now change their baby's diapers at new changing tables of almost every public park bathroom. The Parks Department says 90% of its bathrooms now have them. That news comes after three years before the 2027 deadline, the city council set by law. Councilmember Raphael Salamanca sponsored this bill. He says that as a dad, it was personal for him. When Aiden was younger, I experienced taking him to the playground, having a change his diaper, and not having the appropriate location. You know, we're probably seeing the change his diaper. I did it.

on the bench with him on my lap. The tables are available in men's, women's, and gender-neutral restaurants. Here's our forecast for today. Rain, a high of 55 and gusty, with a slim chance of showers tonight. We dip to the 40s for a low. Watch out for coastal flooding late tonight in Brooklyn and Queens. Tomorrow, mostly sunny, kind of the payoff. 64 with a chance of overnight showers into Sunday.

Sunday, mostly cloudy and 60. Stay close. There's more after the break. On WNMIC, I'm Sean Carlson. All New York State High School students are now required to fill out a financial aid application for college or submit a waiver opting out by the time they graduate. That is under a recent state law sponsored by state senator Andrew Gannardis. It comes after the education department redesigned the FAFSA, or free application for federal student aid,

with the aim of making applying for tuition aid easier and more accessible. But then students and colleges reported many delays. So joining us now to talk more about it is Senator Andrew Gannardis and Adiba Salbia Salba, a high school senior at Hillcress High School in Jamaica, Queens. Adiba, can you tell us more about your FAFSA application process as a high school senior applying for college this year? What was the new FAFSA like? So being the senior this year, I had to go through the new FAFSA website, which I had to go through the new FAFSA website, which I actually don't know how it used to be before it got republished this year.

So the soft launch actually got delayed by a month for us to start our application at first. When it got back to us, a lot of us has to make corrections and errors that were in the application. And based on that, it took a little more than that to process and everything to get sorted out for us students. And so the delays kind of got us all confused in some sort of way to realize how the financial aid is going to look like for us when it actually comes out. Senator, what incentivize you to sponsor universal FAFSA for all New York students? We saw a study that showed that two years ago graduating seniors in New York State left an estimated $200 million on the table in eligible financial aid, all because students did not. complete the fasts of form, which is a lot of money at a time when I think a lot of students are rightfully concerned about whether or not they can afford to go to college. And so we felt very

strongly that if we empower students to have that financial aid information available to them, simply by filling out this form, we are now allowing them to make an educated decision about their future. Which college can they afford to go to all puts the power in students' hands, which ultimately helps them pursue whatever next step they're going to take in their educational journey. Senator, some school districts have expressed concerns about taking on the added responsibility without additional resources or funding. Some schools already don't have maybe many college advisors to begin with. So how would you suggest those schools abide by the new policy? Yeah, that's a great question.

One we've heard a lot about. First of all, looking at other states that have implemented similar policies, There has not been a significant excessive burden place on school staff or administrators, but we're also sensitive to the reality that a lot of our schools take on more than just the role of educating kids and that there is some concern about capacity and bandwidth. So a couple of things. Number one, under the law that we passed, each school has to provide information to students twice a year about applying for financial aid.

It can be done in a school assembly. It could be done in a one-on-one in a career counselor or a guidance counselor. You could bring outside organizations into the school. We know a number of schools are doing that specialize in this type of counseling and guidance and can help educate students and walk them through the process. So there's a bunch of ways that schools can do this. So we don't, at the end of the day, think that this is going to be a radical increase in, you know, school's workload.

It's not making sure that students are empowered with the information they need in order to make smart college decisions. Adiba, what are your thoughts about the universal? FAFSA policy? I think it's really good to have more opportunities. Obviously, as a student, if we get financial aid, it really does pave our way better into college. The transition is smoother. You have one less thing to worry about. But I also think for big public schools, like I go to Hillcrest, we have like a 500 plus senior class, and we have only one college counselor to really guide us through the process of all the college application and financial aid. They're really helpful. But I think a lot of other schools might have similar issues of not having

enough advisors. Although our school did partner with SIA, a South Asian Youth Action Organization, who are very much expert in these fields for college applications and financial aid. So after partnering with them, things have gotten a little easier. But I think Other schools also need more resources in forms of advisors for us to pave through this way because it can be a little intimidating to at first look at the whole website, all the information that you need to fill out. Adiba, before we went on the air, we were talking about a question that you maybe had for the senator about the maximum amount of funding for students.

Would you mind asking him? So I was informed after filling out FAFSA this year that there is a maximum amount that each student receives based on their financial eligibility. But I was wondering if everybody is mandated to fill out the FAFSA form, is there going to be a decrease in the maximum aid a student might receive? You know, when you fill out the FAFSA, it's about your federal aid eligibility, but a lot of schools and a lot of like states, like New York State use that to also determine the amount of award that we give from the state budget. So in terms of the maximum award under federal program, like a Pell grants, for example. I have no ability to answer that because that's federal money that I don't have any

control over. In New York State this year in our budget, we did increase the value of the tuition assistance program awards, which is New York State's version of state-based financial aid. And so we doubled the amount of the award to up to $1,000. We fully anticipate that by requiring everyone to to FASA, we will have sufficient resources still to give everyone the maximum eligibility they are entitled to. And I don't foresee that being an issue, at least as it relates to New York State's budget and New York State's tuition assistance program. And if we need to put more money into the program, that's a good problem to have. That means that we're able to help more students pay for school. Adiba, what else would you like to see the state do to help more students get

through their FAFSA applications for college more smoothly? I would say on the end of the federal government, if they had more people working in this field, maybe it will not make so many delays for our end. And it might help us make our decisions faster and better. And we can have more time to decide where we might go. Because this year, FAFSA, it sort of took a little more time than it was supposed to. Yeah, you know, Senator Adiba raises an interesting point. There are some college-bound high school students who still don't know how much tuition.

they might pay, so they haven't decided where they can afford to go. Because of a lot of these delays and things like that, is there anything that they can do to get help for that? I think if individual students are having specific issues, they should feel free to reach out to their local government officials office, their congressman's office, their state senators office. And we can try to help on a case-by-case basis. But this is a nationwide problem right now. It was bad this year. It's going to get better because it was the first year that they used this new system. What we don't want to have happen is for next year's high school senior class to get discouraged by what happened this year and decide that they're not going to apply at all.

You know, in some ways, having the universal FAFSA requirement, even despite the challenges this year, is actually a good thing because it'll help make sure that the stigma of this one bad year won't affect future classes' ability to apply and qualify for more aid. That was the state senator, Andrew Gannardis, and high schooler Adivaselvia. much for joining us to you both. Thank you so much for having us. Thank you. Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WNYC. Be sure to catch us every weekday, three times a day, for your top news headlines and occasional deep dives. Also subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. We'll be back this evening.