Video Clip: President Obama Notes Say Yes in Buffalo: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/clip/4462538
“Folks in Buffalo understand this—Mayor Brown was talking about the city of Buffalo and the great work that’s being done through the program that’s called Say Yes… to make sure that no child in Buffalo has to miss out on a college education because they can’t pay for it.”
Video Clip: President Obama Notes Say Yes in Syracuse: http://www.c-span.org/Events/Pres-Obama-Discusses-College-Costs-in-New-York-Pennsylvania/10737440982-2/
**Say Yes Mention at 3:35 Mark**
"I wanted to come to Syracuse because you're doing something fantastic here with programs like Say Yes, Smart Scholars Early College High School. These are programs that are helping Syracuse kids get ready for college and making sure that they can afford to go. This is a community effort with all of you coming together and you have declared that no child in the city of Syracuse should miss out on a college education because they can't pay for it."
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Obama used ‘Say Yes’ campaign as part of education message in Syracuse
SYRACUSE – President Obama ended the first day of his upstate swing Tuesday evening by promoting his plan to keep college accessible to all students at a high school in a city that’s noted for trying to do just that.
Repeating many of the themes – and even the phrases – that he uttered in Buffalo six hours earlier, Obama put special emphasis on Syracuse’s pioneering “Say Yes” program, which is now being replicated in Buffalo.
“I wanted to come to Syracuse because you’re doing something fantastic here, with programs like Say Yes,” Obama said.
Say Yes to Education, a nonprofit foundation, set up shop in Syracuse in 2008 with a goal of making sure that any high school student in the city who wanted to go to college would be able to do so.
The program offers free college tuition to any graduate of a Syracuse city high school who has been in the school district for at least three years and has been accepted at Syracuse University or New York’s public colleges. Low- and middle-income students at the city’s private high schools are eligible as well.
Obama said programs such as Say Yes should expand to other communities, and that’s just what’s happening.
“Say Yes is actually a national entity that is also implementing a program here in Buffalo in partnership with local stakeholders,” said Betsy Behrend, communications director for Say Yes Buffalo. “Work here began last year implementing the program that began in Syracuse five years ago.”
Programs such as Say Yes are important, Obama said, for one overarching reason.
“The fact is college has never been more necessary but it’s never been more expensive,” he said.
Reiterating his three-point plan for controlling college costs – including a new government rating system that will rate colleges on their cost-effectiveness – Obama told the students at Henninger High School that college is especially essential in an era where lower-skilled jobs are not as plentiful as they once were.
Noting that college graduates have a far lower unemployment rate than non-college graduates, he said: “Higher education is the single best investment you can make in your future. The single-best.”
Some 1,335 people, including plenty of students, crowded into the gymnasium at the school to hear the president speak.
And while the crowd was a friendly one, the overall welcome Obama received here was a bit rougher than the one he received in Buffalo.
For one thing, Obama’s Syracuse appearance drew far more protesters than his speech in Buffalo.
Well over 100 people lined both sides of the road leading to the school to protest hydraulic fracturing, the controversial natural gas extraction method that Obama supports.
In addition, a couple dozen people gathered to protest the Obama’s refusal to end military aid to Egypt in wake of the recent coup there.
And once Obama started speaking at the high school, an especially boisterous heckler shouted over him, calling for freedom for Pvt. Bradley Manning, the former Army intelligence staffer who leaked a treasure trove of government secrets to WikiLeaks.
As authorities removed the heckler from the hall, Obama said: “As hecklers go, that young lady was very polite … And she brought up an issue of importance, and that’s part of what America is all about.”
The president will hold a town hall in Binghamton today and then speak at Lackawanna University in Scranton, Pa. But between those appearances, there are likely to be unannounced stops on the bus tour such as those that took Obama to Rochester and Seneca Falls on Thursday.
Obama stopped at Magnolia’s Deli and Café in Rochester. After greeting a handful of people enjoying lunch on the sidewalk patio, the president entered the restaurant and sat down at a long table for a discussion of college costs with a group of current and recent University of Rochester students, as well as a professor.
After his stop in Rochester, Obama moved on to Seneca Falls, where he visited the Women’s Rights National Historical Park and bought souvenirs for his daughters, before heading to Syracuse.
email: jzremski@buffnews.com
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Obama's Syracuse visit leaves Say Yes to Education with high hopes
on August 22, 2013 at 9:07 PM, updated August 22, 2013 at 9:51 PM
Syracuse -- President Barack Obama spoke to a cheering, capacity crowd of 1,335 in the Henninger High School gym tonight, promising action to lower college costs and help graduates manage their student loan debt.
"Higher education is the single best investment you can make in your future," he declared.
But the group hoping to gain the most immediate boost from the president's Syracuse visit may have been Say Yes to Education. The non-profit organization came to Syracuse five years ago with a college tuition guarantee for city students and extensive supports to help children take advantage of it.
From the start of the evening, it was clear that Say Yes would be a recurring, if not dominant, theme. In the first, brief speech, at 4:30 p.m., Syracuse schools Superintendent Sharon Contreras spent much of her time praising Say Yes for making college affordable to city students.
Contreras said she gave up her VIP seat to Say Yes founder George Weiss, who sat in the front row next to Syracuse University Chancellor Nancy Cantor. Cantor was instrumental in bringing Say Yes to Syracuse.
Before the president arrived in the gym, Weiss said he was convinced that Obama's decision to visit Buffalo and Syracuse - the two cities where Say Yes operates across the entire school districts - was based on Say Yes.
Obama mentioned Say Yes only briefly in Buffalo, but his shout-out in Syracuse was a bit heartier.
"I wanted to come to Syracuse because you're doing something fantastic here with programs like Say Yes and Smart Scholars, Early College High School," he said.
"This community, all of you, have come together and you have declared that no child in the city of Syracuse should miss out on a college education because he can't pay for it. So we're hoping more cities follow your example, because what you're doing is critical not just to Syracuse's future but to America's future."
Although the mentions were brief, Weiss said they are a big deal for Say Yes.
"This is huge," he said. "This in my view is going to catapult Say Yes to its rightful place. ... It is a national model and it should be taken nationally."
He said Say Yes has always wanted to expand across the country. He said plenty of additional cities are lining up to be Say Yes partners. What he is looking for is a federal partnership, and he said having Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan aware of the program is no small matter.
Weiss' only down moment of the evening came when he went to the second floor of the school with other VIPs to meet with the president before the speech. In an apparent glitch, Weiss' name was left off the list, and he was escorted back downstairs.
Say Yes President Mary Anne Schmitt-Carey was in the group that met with Obama.
After the speech, when the president came off the podium and spent several minutes shaking hands in the crowd as Bruce Springsteen's "Land of Hope and Dreams" blared over the sound system, he approached Weiss.
"He said he is very impressed with what Say Yes is doing," Weiss said with a smile. "I told him we want to be part of the solution."
Contact Paul Riede at priede@syracuse.com or 470-3260. Follow him on Twitter at @PaulRiede.
© 2013 syracuse.com. All rights reserved.
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As President Obama talks college affordability, Buffalo’s program looks to be a model
BUFFALO, N.Y. — When 18-year-old Cheyenne Ketter-Franklin begins classes at the University at Buffalo next week, she will be spared at least one anxiety — the prospect of being saddled with a mountain of higher-education debt.
An innovative scholarship program that offers up to full tuition to any Buffalo public or charter school graduate accepted to college is taking away that worry for Ketter-Franklin and hundreds of other students, and giving parents a powerful incentive to stay.
The Say Yes to Education program got a hoped for plug from President Barack Obama on Thursday when he spoke about college affordability during a stop at the Buffalo campus. The president praised “the great work that’s being done through a program called Say Yes, to make sure that no child in Buffalo has to miss out on college because they can’t pay for it.”
Buffalo’s fledgling Say Yes program already had been on the U.S. Department of Education’s radar when Obama’s visit to the city was announced, said Executive Director David Rust, who answered department questions about it a few months ago. Once the visit was confirmed, Rust secured an invitation to meet with Obama.
“We’re removing the most significant barrier, which is financial, in a region that’s struggled for decades now,” Rust said. “And that’s right in line with what he’s talking about, and that’s affordable college for all.”
Obama’s visit to Buffalo was the first in a two-day bus tour through upstate New York and Pennsylvania to push for a new government rating system for colleges that would judge schools on affordability and performance and ultimately determine how federal financial aid is distributed.
Say Yes has chapters in Buffalo, Syracuse, Philadelphia, Hartford, Conn., and New York City’s Harlem neighborhood, each offering varying degrees of academic, social and financial supports intended to increase high school and college graduation rates. The tuition scholarships, which provide gap funding for tuition not covered by federal or state aid or other scholarships, are funded locally through donations from individuals, businesses and philanthropic groups.
“I’m relieved for starters,” Ketter-Franklin said, especially as she watches her sister Kathyran struggle under $40,000 worth of debt after graduating from Canisius College in May, before Say Yes began in Buffalo with the class of 2013.
“College is stressful enough on its own,” she said. “Knowing that you’re going to have this money, that it’s guaranteed and doesn’t have to be another thing to worry about, definitely makes looking forward to college and enjoying the college life a lot easier.”
In Syracuse and Buffalo, Say Yes lets eligible high school graduates go to any of the colleges and universities in the State University of New York and City University of New York systems, vocational schools or participating private institutions that include Notre Dame, Harvard and Duke.
After Buffalo, the president headed to Henninger High School in Syracuse. On Friday, he plans to answer questions at a town hall-style event at SUNY Binghamton before a stop at Lackawanna College in Scranton, Pa, where he was to be joined by Vice President Joe Biden.
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President Obama will highlight 'Say Yes to Education' in Syracuse
Washington -- President Barack Obama will use his appearance in Syracuse on Thursday to tout the city's "Say Yes to Education" program as a national model, the White House's top domestic policy adviser said today.
Obama also will bring along U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan on his bus trip from Buffalo to Syracuse to highlight the program and talk about making college affordable for the middle class, the adviser said.
Cecilia Munoz, director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, said the president chose Henninger High School as the only non-college stop on his two-day trip because of its involvement with the "Say Yes" program.
"He will indeed be lifting up the 'Say Yes' program as an important community commitment," Munoz said in an interview with The Post-Standard.
"It demonstrates a strong community commitment and it demonstrates a strong community success," Munoz said of the "Say Yes" program.
"Say Yes to Education" is a nonprofit collaboration of public schools and universities that began in 2008 in Syracuse with a simple promise: Free college tuition would be available to any Syracuse School District graduate accepted at New York's public colleges and participating private schools.
The New York City-based non-profit was founded by multimillionaire hedge-fund sponsor and philanthropist George Weiss. He has worked with selected schools for more than two decades. Syracuse is the first effort to expand the program to an entire school district.
Syracuse University was part of the original Say Yes partnership in Syracuse, and is the only participating private school to provide free tuition to graduates regardless of income.
SU Chancellor Nancy Cantor, one the original advocates for "Say Yes," will be among President Obama's invited guests on Thursday, an SU spokesman said.
As part of Obama's two-day bus tour across New York and Pennsylvania, he will stop at colleges and universities in Buffalo, Binghamton and Scranton. The doors for Obama's speech at Henninger High School in Syracuse will open at 3 p.m. Thursday to those who obtained tickets earlier this week.
Munoz said in the interview that the president plans to use his trip to propose several "ambitious new policies" to make college more affordable and a better value, particularly for the middle class.
View full sizeCecilia Munoz, director of the White House Domestic Policy Council Those initiatives will include new legislation and action that can be taken directly by the president through administrative orders, Munoz said. She declined to discuss details before Obama's speeches in Buffalo and Syracuse.
"He is coming to Upstate New York to talk about the high cost of college education and to lay out some plans for addressing it," Munoz said of the president. "This is clearly a major issue for people in the middle class and people aspiring to be in the middle class."
She added, "We know that students in the state of New York graduate with an average of $26,000 in debt. This is close to becoming unsustainable. And the president feels we need to address this."
Munoz said the legislative initiatives will be timed to coincide with the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, which expires at the end of this year. She said the president will reach out for bipartisan support of the initiatives.
Political observers say Obama's trip, while Congress is on a five-week summer break, is timed in part to seize the initiative ahead of debates about the budget, deficit and debt expected to dominate Washington this fall.
Among those who have been invited to meet with Obama before Thursday's speech is U.S. Rep. Dan Maffei, D-Syracuse. Maffei could also serve as an example for the president's message about student loan debt.
The 24th District congressman is among the poorest members of Congress, with a negative net worth. He has reported carrying about $100,000 in student loan debt. Maffei, 45, has three Ivy League degrees.
New York state Republican Chairman Ed Cox accused Obama on Wednesday of using the Upstate tour for political reasons to boost Democratic chances in swing districts held by Republicans, or recently held by Republicans.
Maffei won his seat back in 2012 from former Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle, R-Onondaga Hill, after she defeated Maffei by 648 votes in 2010.
Contact Mark Weiner at mweiner@syracuse.com or 571-970-3751. Follow him on Twitter @MarkWeinerDC