Welcome home, all you college students. How did it go this year?
Were you proud of your new school? Did they stand up for moral principles? How about their ethics? Are they spending your (or your parents) tuition money wisely?
Growing up in Brooklyn. I didn’t have the luxurious option of going to a tuition, out-of-town school. Most of us had one option. It was a city (another name for New York City) elementary and high school, followed by a tuition-free New York City College. No exceptions.
Stuyvesant High School for me and Forest Hills High School for my future wife, then Queens College for Paul Simon, Marvin Hamlisch and all the Morris’s. As each successive generation became more and more successful, the American dream that my uneducated, immigrant grandparents only prayed for, came about. My father was the first in the family to go to college, and in September 1962, I became the first to go to graduate school.
His name is Chen Guangcheng, and he is the blind Chinese dissident who fled his Communist homeland last year. He has been a student at NYU, my alma mater, ever since.
Remember his dramatic escape? Liberals like Hillary Clinton, jumped at the opportunity to be a part of his inspirational flight to freedom.
That didn’t last very long. NYU decided to build a branch of their university in Shanghai.
Shortly after the Chinese bureaucrats gave NYU permission to start their new university campus there, the Chinese government expressed their displeasure at having Guangcheng remain at NYU. It didn’t take long for NYU to succumb to the pressure and throw Guangcheng out. Where is Hillary now? As an NYU alumnus, I call this action a moral and ethical disgrace. Doesn’t it remind you of those who tried to prevent Pamela Geller from speaking? Oh, I forgot, if you don’t like what someone has to say, just ban them.
His name is John Sexton and, as reported in the NY Post, NYU “lent” him one million dollars (that’s not a misprint) to buy a Fire Island vacation beach home. A second home! Mr. Sexton is the President of NYU.
His name is Jacob Lew, and he was NYU’s executive vice president. The Post also reported that NYU gave him a mortgage loan for his NYC apartment. My alma mater even “forgave” part of this loan. Mr. Lew is Obama’s new treasury secretary!
Richard Reveaz, dean of NYU’s law school, owns a West Village town house, financed by NYU, even though he has a 65-acre home in Lichfield County. Being a poor, “struggling” teacher is really tough these days.
Five medical or law school faculty members have received loans from NYU to buy second homes in the Hampton’s or Fire Island. The list of the recipients of NYU’s loan program is staggering.
NYU is a private institution, and can spend its money anyway it wishes. But President Obama uses the increase in the cost of higher education, especially tuition, as the reason to further expand his $17 Billion student loan program.
Isn’t it remarkable what Obama will do for people who traditionally vote Democratic? Why doesn’t he first start looking at the university’s unconscionable spending practices. No wonder their tuition keeps rising.
Donate my money to NYU this year? As long as NYU violates basic democratic principles and their university funds are wasted on selfish extravagances, I’ll wait awhile, or donate elsewhere.
Dr. Stephen Morris, DDS
North Hills
Stuyvesant HS, 1959
NYU Dental School,
class of 1966
