Government Funding in Education: Define Success

By: Frank Yunker

Date: 2025-03-18

With all the conversation about Elon Musk, DOGE and potential cuts to the Department of Education, it seems a good time to discuss how funding in education really works. Questionable educational expenditures are not confined to the federal government.

CSTEP is a New York State jobs program. That is not what it claims to be. Official literature states: CSTEP stands for Collegiate Science & Technology Entry Program. The program is funded through the NYS Department of Education and provides resources to eligible students showing interest and ability to pursue professions in the STEM related fields (Science, Technology, Engineering, and/or Math).

Hmm. Provide resources to eligible students. Sounds wonderful.

The CSTEP program I'm familiar with began at a local community college in Fall 2015. Their first contact with the Computer Science department was 18 months later in March of 2017. By then, the first program director had already quit and been replaced. They had an open house to let us know more about the program.

We met the Director of the program and the Academic Advisor/Counselor. Very nice people. In addition, C-Step employs two academic tutors for English and Math primarily, but they will tutor whatever they are capable of tutoring. The tutors are available from 9 to 4, but are not paid much more than typical minimum wage tutors.

So, how does the program work? CSTEP is for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) majors that have 2.0 but they can also be for minorities or low income students. They mentioned a CIS major from a foreign country who was in their program. He probably qualified all 3 ways.

The program needed to serve a number of students to prove success. To count as served, a student needed only to attend two events in an academic year. In simplistic terms, a student can stop by for an informational session and decide the program is of no interest. They would already be half-way to being counted as served. If on another day they walked by the room, smelled the popcorn, and stopped in for a snack, they could then be counted as served.

Naturally, the program does more that serve popcorn. They can help with academic advising. I allowed them into my Spring 2017 class to make their pitch. After they left, I asked the class if anyone was interested. No one was.

A year later I did get an update. We were discussing government programs in Macroeconomics. I mentioned Trio, Quest, CSTEP, HPOG, all government funded educational programs. A couple of the students had used Trio and CSTEP. In both cases, the only "value added" was free printing. The Trio printers were black and white. CSTEP offered color printing. And while CSTEP offered popcorn, a Trio Counselor always had snacks. One of the students did not know this and the other student said to get the snacks you have to go early in the morning.

CSTEP is a 200 million dollar state program. What does a community college spend its grant on? Two full time professionals. Two full time minimum wage tutors. None of them regularly interact with the teaching faculty. They also spend money on textbooks and popcorn. And a color printer.

Program success is measured not by value added but by adding names to a list.

But success can be more easily defined. Most of the money is spent on salaries. That makes CSTEP a successful jobs program.