logo
Op-Ed: Tapping NYC’s Community-Based Organizations to Boost College Success

Commentary/Op-Ed - December 2017

Op-Ed: Tapping NYC’s Community-Based Organizations to Boost College Success

There is a vital ally in the campaign to help more New Yorkers reach graduation day: the city’s constellation of community-based organizations. But policymakers and education officials need to do more to ensure these organizations are integrated throughout the system.

by Matt A.V. Chaban & Tom Hilliard

Tags: human services low income higher education community colleges

When it comes to supporting students on the path to a college degree, New York City needs all the help it can get. But the city’s education system is not leveraging the full potential of its community-based organizations to help boost college completion.

In this New York Nonprofit op-ed, the Center for an Urban Future's policy director and Fisher fellow, Matt A.V. Chaban, and Senior Fellow for Economic Opportunity Tom Hilliard argue that these organizations need to be better integrated into the city’s school systems, so that their powerful programs can reach the thousands of students who need them. 

Read the op-ed here.

This op-ed is a continuation of the Center for an Urban Future's extensive research on higher education in New York, including the groundbreaking study Degrees of Difficulty: Boosting College Success in New York City.   

Photo Credit: Pixabay/ Pexels 

This research was made possible by The Clark Foundation.

General operating support for the Center for an Urban Future is provided by the Bernard F. and Alva B. Gimbel Foundation. We are also grateful for support from Fisher Brothers for the Center for an Urban Future’s Middle Class Jobs Project.

Center for an Urban Future (CUF) is an independent, nonprofit think tank that generates innovative policies to create jobs, reduce inequality, and help lower income New Yorkers climb into the middle class. For 20 years, CUF has published accessible, data-driven reports on ways to grow and diversify the economy and expand opportunity that are anchored in rigorous research, not preconceived notions about outcome. Our work has been a powerful catalyst for policy change in New York City and serves as an invaluable resource for government officials, community groups, nonprofit practitioners and business leaders as they advocate for and implement policies to address some of New York’s biggest challenges and opportunities.

Related Press


Why are New York’s community colleges losing students in a strong economy?

Westfair, by Ryan Deffenbaugh, March 05, 2019