4 CULTURE
9 OPINION
This First-Year Finds Community in Cooking
Courtesy Meals Shouldn’t Come at a Price
6 ARTS
10 SPORTS
Charly Bliss Comes of Age, Led by Clive Davis Alumna
Judo at NYU, a Balancing Act
VOLUME LIII | ISSUE 12
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2019
Unexpected Charges Leave Students Distrustful of Courtesy Meals Program Some of those who used the Courtesy Meals Program found funds from their financial aid diverted to covering its cost. By VICTOR PORCELLI News Editor The Courtesy Meals Program, which is supposed to be free, affected some financially vulnerable students’ aid packages this week, leading to confusion and distrust of the program. The CMP provides students with Dining Dollars — and, as of recently, meal swipes — to ensure they don’t go hungry. However, a small group of users received an email from the Office of Financial Aid on Wednesday notifying them that their financial aid packages would be adjusted due to their use of the program. Student government Chairperson and Gallatin senior Jakiyah Bradley previously served as a Senator atLarge for food-insecure students. Bradley first learned about the policy change through a constituent, but saw Instagram stories drawing attention to it being widely circulated by students. Bradley said immediately after hearing about students’ financial aid being affected, she brought the issue to administrators who said they would begin working to resolve it. One of the first to post it to their story, Steinhardt senior Elaine Cao had $150 taken out of their workstudy to go toward the CMP. JULIA MCNEILL | WSN
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Entrance to the NYU Academic Resource Center, one of the Courtesy Meals locations.
NYU Students Don’t Know if the Degree Is Worth the Debt By AASHNA AGARWAL Contributing Writer Phillip Youmans was 17 when he started production of his feature film “Burning Cane,” 18 when he submitted it to Tribeca Film Festival as an NYU first-year and 19 when he became the first black director to win the best U.S. narrative feature. He is the youngest director to ever be featured at the festival. The would-be NYU sophomore
student’s film — which made the New York Times Critic’s Pick list — premiered on Netflix on Nov. 6. But Youmans doesn’t credit NYU for his successes. Currently on a leave of absence as he travels the world with his film for festival premieres in Canada, Iceland, the U.K. and more locations, Youmans is unsure whether he’ll return to film school. He is already $40,000 in debt for student loans from his first year. “We’re still shooting with still frames
and Canon DSLR when we’re paying near $80,000 a year,” Youmans said. “To be taking stills? It opened my eyes to how much like a business this college feels sometimes.” Youmans’ issue is that if he chooses to drop out, he will be expected to pay back his loans within a much less forgiving time frame. He must now choose between pursuing his career full-time along with a heavy financial burden or returning to school with an even greater debt but more time to pay it off.
NYU has long been one of the most expensive private universities in the United States. College Factual reports that a third of undergraduate students at NYU take out federal loans. Meanwhile, 62% of NYU students come from the top 20% of the income bracket but only 6% come from the bottom 20%, according to the New York Times. “The one-size-fits-all design of the NYU film school kind of messed me up when it was time for the festival,” Youmans said. “I was trying to scram-
ble to get my film ready for exhibition in a theatre, and because I had no money, I was at the mercy of other people’s schedules. I tried to communicate that to NYU and to my professors, and while I got a lot of congratulations emails, I also got a lot of simultaneous Fs on my transcript.” Youmans isn’t the only NYU student who is now second-guessing their decision to take out loans to attend their dream school. CONTINUED ON PAGE 4