Albany, NY – An $18 million tuition subsidy devised by Gov. Paterson as a political gift to the city’s Orthodox Jewish community has emerged as an 11th-hour sticking point in budget talks, The Post has learned.
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The unprecedented expansion of the state’s Tuition Assistance Program – derisively dubbed “Rabbi TAP” by frustrated budget negotiators — guarantees grants of up to $5,000 a year to at least 3,660 students at a few dozen rabbinical schools in the city and suburbs.
Paterson slipped the program into his 2010-11 spending plan while he was planning to run for election and desperately courting political support from the Orthodox. The controversy comes at a time when he’s demanding massive cuts to public colleges and universities.
The Assembly is seeking to kill the program, sources said. That has sparked a clash with Senate Finance Chairman Carl Kruger (D-Brooklyn), who calls the subsidy a “must have.”
“Obviously, it’s totally inappropriate to advance a significant new program, when we’re cutting SUNY, when we’re cutting CUNY, when we’re cutting community colleges,” said Assembly Higher Education Chairwoman Deborah Glick (D-Manhattan).
Students at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in Manhattan, a non-religious private school, would also be eligible for TAP, thanks to tortured legislative language used in an attempt to ensure it passes constitutional muster.
Paterson spokesman Morgan Hook said the program was intended to “create parity” in aid for rabbinical students.
Where can I sign up to become a TARP rabbi?
sounds like a slush (not the seven – eleven type) fund to me
There is no reason to exclude rabbinical students from this program. However, we need to pay for it. What taxes does Sen. Kruger wish to raise?
sounds like paterson is looking for a place in leolam hababhahh even if he is visuallly changened.
it is only 9:40 AM and already two education scams.
Considering our Yeshiva students have to pay through the nose for education (actually we parents pay!) as well as the taxes we pay for public school education that we don’t use, a small return is fair. Yes, paying for it in such an economy is a major problem, but the principle is fair.
HOWEVER…my son got smicha last year, another is studying for it now, a third is in Beis Medrash & no one ever said to me there was $$ available to help defray the costs. Then again, I don’t live in Monroe or Kiryas Joel.
That’s why, me as a frum parent, who is bogged down by expensive tuition (b”H) would not want school vouchers for non-public school students as I think the program will become abused and another sore point with the public that will come back to haunt us.
This is a shandra, and charpa. With the state so deeply in debt, no money for Suny, The 18.0 should be canceled as well.
Paterson makes Spitzer look like a saint.
This type of pandering has to stop, and we must fo back to basics. You want your child in Yeshiva, get another job, and let your wives go to work as well.
It’s about time that we all begin to live within our own means.
This is worse than the Democrats used in buying votes for the health care bill in the Senate. Remove this legislation and ALL subsidies for special interest groups, yiddeshe or goiyeshe, at at time we are laying off police and emergency responders.
This thing is a total Red Herring. The money is the annual amount given to all frum schools in N.Y. This is not only what KJ got.
Please I beg all of you naysayers to stop eating your own. We are dying. our institutions are struggling. We get nearly zero from the state for the hundreds of millions in taxes we pay. TAP is made available to all colleges but not Rabbinical colleges because of a flaw in the state law. The federal gov recognizes all of our rabbinical colleges with pell grants but NYS does not. This law will provide a small measure of equity. Stop the self hating? I expect this horrific behavior on secular sites not on the site that parents will benefit most from. $18 million in a multi -billion dollar budget is pennies – our pennies!!! Stop the fratricide. This plan will help every single post high school yeshiva in new york state. The officials who are supporting this program have gone out of their way to support this program to help alleviate the tremendous burden our parents are dealing with. This is a legal and justifiable way for our rabbinical colleges to get SOMETHING in the form of tuition assistance. If the self haters on this site are allowed to control this debate we are doomed. We need all people who care about klal yisreol and our mosdos to speak the truth and support this!
Chaim Weiss is 100% correct. This is a new subsidy, mant to expand the TAP program that every college student in NYS EXCEPT Yeshiva students are eligible for, to finally INCLUDE Yeshiva students in Bais Medrash. For most NY Batei Medrash, this will be the FIRST state money they have ever recived, and it is meant SPECIFICALLY for needy students, not for the Yeshivos. True, the Yeshivos will benefit by the ability of these needy students to now be able to generate some tuition income, but this is intended to make state aid available for the first time for needy Yeshiva (Bais Medrash only) students. Why would anyone be against that?