The $2.5 million gift is another expression of the Friedman family's deep commitment to CUNY.
A new $2,500,000 five-year gift by the Friedman family to The City College of New York has established a fund to support the Colin Powell Career Fellows program and the Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership’s new Social Mobility Lab.
The Colin Powell Career Fellows program, established in 2022, provides students with stipends for unpaid and underpaid internships as well as with workshops, training, career coaching, and professional development in order to prepare them for internships. Each internship stipend provides support of up to $5,500 for a Colin Powell student. Internship stipends may cover all of the internship, or can also be used as a supplement for low-paying internships, depending upon an individual internship’s compensation offer and length.
The Social Mobility Lab, launched in April 2024, aims to advance understanding of how higher education in the United States — and particularly public higher education — expands and accelerates opportunities for students, their families, and the communities from which they come. The fund will support the staff, research, student projects, programs, and public events associated with the new Social Mobility Lab. The Lab’s mission is to discover new ways to accelerate and expand opportunity for students and the communities they represent. The Lab recently announced its inaugural cohort of research grantees.
“The Friedman family has a deep commitment to CUNY,” said a representative of the family. “Internships not only give students vital job skills and deeper networks, they also help build self-confidence, the sense that a student belongs. With this support, we are pleased to make it possible for more Colin Powell School students to have meaningful internships that lead to career-starting jobs. Alongside that, the work of the Social Mobility Lab informs all that the School does to support student success, career development, and progress toward equity and economic justice.”
“The research is overwhelming about how important internships have become to the career prospects for young people; and funding for unpaid and underpaid internships has been a game changer for our students. We are so grateful to be able to support more to fulfill their ambitions,” said Richard J. Henley and Susan L. Davis Dean Andrew Rich of the Colin Powell School. “The support in this grant for our newly launched Social Mobility Lab will allow us to learn even more about the factors that enable student success and to implement programs to advance that success.”
About the Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership
Established in 2013, the Colin Powell School is home to the social science departments at CCNY as well as the core leadership development and public service programs of the College. With 4,000 students, and graduating the most CCNY students annually, the Colin Powell School mission is to transform the nation’s most diverse student body into tomorrow’s global leaders. Half of our students are immigrants; more than seventy percent are first-generation college students. Eighty percent are people of color. Most come from lower income backgrounds. The Colin Powell School and City College remain among the most effective engines of economic and social mobility in the United States. The School is led by a faculty dedicated to the highest standards of research and to the university’s democratic and public obligations. Read more about the Colin Powell School.
About The City College of New York
Since 1847, The City College of New York has provided a high-quality and affordable education to generations of New Yorkers in a wide variety of disciplines. CCNY embraces its position at the forefront of social change. It is ranked #1 by the Harvard-based Opportunity Insights out of 369 selective public colleges in the United States on the overall mobility index. This measure reflects both access and outcomes, representing the likelihood that a student at CCNY can move up two or more income quintiles. Education research organization Degree Choices ranks CCNY #1 nationally among universities for economic return on investment. In addition, the Center for World University Rankings places CCNY in the top 1.8% of universities worldwide in terms of academic excellence. Labor analytics firm Lightcast puts at $3.2 billion CCNY’s annual economic impact on the regional economy (5 boroughs and 5 adjacent counties) and quantifies the “for dollar” return on investment to students, taxpayers and society. At City College, more than 15,000 students pursue undergraduate and graduate degrees in eight schools and divisions, driven by significant funded research, creativity and scholarship. In 2023, CCNY launched its most expansive fundraising campaign, ever. The campaign, titled “Doing Remarkable Things Together” seeks to bring the College’s Foundation to more than $1 billion in total assets in support of the College mission. CCNY is as diverse, dynamic and visionary as New York City itself. View CCNY Media Kit.
Syd Steinhardt
212-650-7875
ssteinhardt1@ccny.cuny.edu