Mayor Rahm Emanuel unveils plan to pay for college scholarships

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel connecting with college students

Mayor Rahm Emanuel will announce tomorrow that he has established a plan to pay for scholarships to the City Colleges of Chicago, which he promised in October of 2014. In order to provide the funds, Mayor Emanuel will close 3 city colleges.

"This strategy has helped us make our Chicago public schools better. Now we will be able to help our students pay for college, without raising taxes on the residents of Chicago. We will concentrate in areas of proven success in order to multiply success."

The city colleges slated for closure include Kennedy-King, Malcolm X and Olive-Harvey.  All three are on Chicago's West and South Sides.

"This move will not just provide scholarships, but save the taxpayers millions of dollars," said the mayor.  A review of the budget revealed that much of the savings would come in the form of fewer salaries due to thousands of layoffs.
Critics have pointed out several areas where they feel the strategy is short-sighted and harming particular neighborhoods of Chicago.

from Chicago Catalyst

For example, critics point out that Kennedy-King has recently opened a new campus,and is the leader for students completing their associate's degree. The Chicago Catalyst has noted that Kennedy-King has the highest graduation rate among the 7 city colleges, with its 26% trumping rates between 8-14% and the other 6 colleges. 

The Catalyst also noted that actually very few of the students who would qualify for the scholarship usually attend City Colleges. Melissa Sanchez of the Catalyst reported that "students who meet the scholarship requirements — including a 3.0 grade-point average and placement into college-level math and English courses — aren't the typical demographic at City Colleges, where 90 percent of incoming freshmen need to take remedial courses." Instead, they often opt for a 4 year college. Also, for many of the other students, Federal and State grants(such as the Pell and MAP grants, which can total more than $9,000 for students with a Zero EFC who apply in January)  take precedent, and cover nearly all of the costs for City College tuition, books and fees (an average cost of $8,000). 

This move follows the closing of 50 Chicago Public Schools in 2013, 90% of which were in African-American and Latino neighborhoods on Chicago's South and West sides.  Neighborhoods in the largely unaffected Downtown and North sides range from multicultural to white. .

When asked why these particular colleges were chosen, the mayor responded by saying "Every family that I have talked to want to send their children to the whi... er,  right college. We closed primary and secondary schools that were failing to achieve success. Why stop there?"