By Sarina Trangle
U.S. Rep. Grace Meng (D-Flushing) said Monday she saved Bramson ORT College from shutting its doors, but she and the Forest Hills college would not discuss details of the school’s trajectory.
Meng’s office said Bramson ORT, a two-year technical college near Austin Street and Queens Boulevard currently on a two-year accreditation probationary period, approached the congresswoman after reaching an impasse with the U.S. Department of Education over funding.
Earlier this year, the DOE placed Bramson ORT under heightened cash monitoring and required additional documentation before giving it access to financial aid funds, Meng said. The congresswoman said the government put Bramson ORT under scrutiny because it had restructured its education program.
Meng maintained education officials received the required paperwork, but did not allocate sorely needed financial aid funding to Bramson ORT until she helped mediate what she called “miscommunications.” She said Bramson ORT has received $175,000 from the government and expects another $980,000 soon.
“I thank officials from the DOE for working with us to prevent the school from shutting down,” Meng said in a statement. “With the school remaining open and this issue now behind it, the institution can move forward to continue the important work it does in educating New York students.”
When asked about the restructuring and probationary period, Meng’s office referred inquiries to Bramson ORT.
The college did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
But its president, David Kanani, thanked Meng in a statement included in a press release from the congresswoman’s office.
“We would like to sincerely thank Congresswoman Meng and her staff for their continued support and guidance in securing payments, and ongoing efforts to restore our financial aid payment status back to the standard method of payment,” Kanani said.
The New York State Board of Regents voted in December 2013 to place Bramson ORT on a two-year probationary accreditation period. A report prepared by the Board of Regents’ Higher Education Committee ahead of that vote noted that a peer review team visited the Forest Hills campus in April 2013 and found it to be out of compliance with accreditation standards, including those related to assessing student achievement, public disclosure and addressing complaints.
“The department found that the institution was out of compliance with the standards for institutional accreditation in significant areas of assessment, faculty and resources. The persistence of similar issues cited in the previous accreditation report was noted. The college’s response did not include specific plans sufficient to suggest that the institution could reasonably be expected to meet the standards within two years. As a result, the department recommended denial of accreditation,” the committee report noted.
The report said Bramson ORT later submitted a road map for bringing the campus into compliance within two years by leasing additional space, getting faculty involved in governance and curricular matters and better assessing student outcomes, which merited a probation period approach.
Reach reporter Sarina Trangle by e-mail at strangle@cnglocal.com or by phone at (718) 260–4546.
