Dear Faculty and Staff,
We are pleased to announce the initiation of the City-As-School Faculty and Staff Pathway to College Fund (the Fund). The Fund will provide our students with financial assistance for the fees associated with applications to college and trade and licensing programs.
As you know, a CUNY application is $65, SUNY schools are $50 each, and private colleges can be as much as $75. Thus, it is more than $200 if a student just applies to CUNY and 3 SUNY’s. The College and Careers Office (CACO) staff recommends that a student apply to at least eight colleges. These costs discourage some of our students from applying at all, or cause them to limit the number of schools to which they apply. Students who are seeking work and trade training programs also have to pay application fees and licensing fees – these can range from $30 to $115 per program. Since we require all students to apply for some type of post-secondary education or training as part of their portfolios, we want to give them all the help we can.
CDI, our nonprofit partner, will accept all donations to the Fund and will hold donations in a restricted account dedicated to City-As students.
We’re writing to ask you to contribute to the Fund. Our goal is to get 100% participation from everyone on the City-As faculty and staff. The fact that you give is more important than the amount of your gift; all gifts help! Together we can build a large enough pool of money to help subsidize the costs of these application fees. As a bonus, your fully tax-deductible contribution sends a powerful message to the foundations that fund CDI at City-As that our faculty and staff value the college and career support services CDI brings us. That’s important in their decision to continue and/or increase funding.
You are doing an amazing job of providing our students with the skills necessary to be successful after graduation. Even a small financial contribution can assist them in utilizing those skills in college or a post-secondary program. We have done tremendous work in getting them ready to graduate from high school—let’s help them take the next step. We thank you for all you do, and thank you in advance for participating!
Warmly,
Alan Cheng, Principal, City-As-School John J. Mancuso, Jr., Executive Director, CDI