cuny is also a big part of the campaign. thank you both for being with >> yes, thank you very much. >> what? two years ago? three years ago? >> about two years ago. >> yeah, that we had you here for this very same thing. in fact, you guys have been doing the immigration hotline now, i think, 14 years. how many years have you been a part of it? >> i've been a part of it since 2009, so about 7 years. >> have you seen it literally grow over the years? >> oh, yeah. definitely, yeah. it's getting bigger. >> in what ways? >> more volunteers, more -- it's just better organized. it keeps getting better and better. we take more calls every year, so... >> sofia, you've been with it even longer, right? i mean, 10 years? >> yes, more than 10 years, yes. >> are you still amazed at how, with each passing year, the popularity and the importance of it grows? >> definitely. i think that it just shows the constant flow of immigrants into the u.s. there's always a need for immigration services, and, you know, that's basically demonstrated with

only 17% of cuny's full-time community college students get a degree in three years.for asap students the rate is 57%. in the fall, new york city leaders pledged an additional $42 million to expand the program from 7,500 students this year to 25,000 by 2018. the goal is to raise the system wide graduation rate to 50% or higher for full-time students. >> at community colleges, and particularly at urban community colleges across the country, the three-year graduation rates about 16% right now. so you could call that a crisiss >> sreenivasan: cuny's chancellor james milliken. >> the issue's not all about access. it's a big part of it. we have to be focused on the success of our students. getting them a degree. >> sreenivasan: ayala's advisor melanie robles says turning the numbers around takes more than pointing students to the right classes. s >> i can work with a student on their academics, right, that's typical.r but then you also have that moment where you're working with a student that is having difficulty at home, so you're coaching them on maybe how to have a conv

and john liu is a former new york city comptroller and professor of public finance at cuny and columbia university. he has been working with supporters of peter liang. we welcome you all to democracy now! first to hertencia petersen. our condolences on the death of your nephew akai gurley. this happened back in november 2014. hertencia petersen, can you explain what you understand happened that day? >> what i understand happened is my nephew was basically walking down a flight of steps, leaving the building. because the elevator was broken. fired a shot and it ricochet. amy: why did he fire the shot? >> he is saying he was afraid. he heard a noise. and my question has and will always be, if you're going into a development and test you know, families live there, so why would you enter a dark stairwell with yourgun drawn? finger on the trigger? night comes out of 10, there is an error that is going to happen. someone can get hurt. it could have been a child, grandmother, a mother. it could have been anyone. on top of that, he had a flashlight. what happened to using the flashlight? you do

. >> reporter: stanley is a professor at cuni and specializes in political psychology. >> i think they're distinguished by the level of their ambition, no. 1. ordinary people are in the 25 to 45 percent range. the heads of companies are probably in the 60 to 65 percent range. and most presidential candidates who stick with it and aren't doing it on the fly are really in the 90 and 95 percent range. >> reporter: in addition to ambition, he says resilience is a key part of what makes a successful candidate tick. >> it takes a lot. it takes a couple of years to plan a presidential run and do it and not everybody is willing to do that. even though they might think of themselves in their wildest dreams as being president. >> reporter: as they vie for the hearts and minds of americans, it's what in their own minds that can make your head spin. ernie: this is some campaign. we've never seen anything like this. you did an interesting story. we hear they need ambition and they need more than that? >> yes. in talking to the doctor, he said to really get in the head of a political candidate, there's

. >>> welcome back to "up close," we have doug muzzio professor at cuny. what an interesting development. new york now the center of the political world for the first time really in decades. >> yeah, it's a must win primary for trump. if he's going to get 1237. and it's important for hillary because it will stem the momentum of sanders. and propel her i think to the nomination. >> sanders does have the big mojo going. he won eight out of the last nine primaries and caucuses and clinton had the lead in the polls. not just a win but a resounding win right? >> ten points is a resounding win. sanders can't finish second. candidate. in states that count. >> right. >> so big win for hillary. >> you don't see an open convention for the democrats. >> no. no. and out of the delegates that remain he's got to win 69% of them. virtually impossible. >> and that's for the republicans, it's a lot closer for trump to get to that magic 1237. >> yeah. and people saying between 1150 and who knows? so -- >> for delegates the number of delegates. >> for delegates and that mean

and i knew she had a son who just graduated from one of the cuny colleges.aid, how is your son doing? great, he is going to get a good job, i am so proud of him. i said, does he have any student debt? what is the interest rate? 9%. i said, do you have a home mortgage? she said, sure i do. did you refinance it? of course i did. what is yours? less than 4%. this is crazy. a college loan is the only loan in the united states that you cannot refinance. did you know that? every other type of loan you can refinance. what does hillary want to do about it? we need to let everybody refinance. [applause] if you can do just that, just that, if we did just about over night, 25 million young americans would save an average of more than $2000 a piece of just by refinancing. then, since a college education, no less than a home is a lifetime asset, and you can get a 20-30 year mortgage on your home, she proposes to give college students the option, no matter how much they borrow from whatever source, the option to turn it into a mortgage. 20 years, at a fixed rate, that nev

resonating with a lot of minorities like african-american latino students that now are in the cuny system's important for them and for the parents. will that make a difference, though? we'll see at the primary. >> it's going to be interesting to see if bernie sanders is asked to explain the mechanics. i haven't heard him ask. i want to go to michelle and what hillary clinton will face. everyone is relate litigating the '90s. it really impacted new york for better and for worse. do you expect that to come up, and how much jeopardy is hillary clinton in on that issue? >> i don't think that -- i think that it's an issue that can make it a little bit more difficult for her liberal supporters who are arguing with their bernie or bust friends to defend hillary clinton's record, right? and bill clinton made it so much worse, not because i think he confronted the black lives matter protester, but because everybody wants to forget the language that hillary clinton, but not just hillary clinton, almost all democrats used about crime in the '90s. right? the political context is so different now. hil

they can't even get themselves together for a cuny school. >> without the assessments our schools become a black holt. our babies go in and don't know whether they come out for global economy. without good assessment data we don't know they're learning. >> what we do know is that the achievement gap has not been closing since no child left behind. >> that is not true. >> we know common core test something that actually last three years the gap has been widening especially for people of color. and i think that, until the equity, until the playing field is fair, where there are small classrooms across all schools -- >> that is, where are they going to get small classrooms? they're overcrowded as it is. what buildings will they use? >> interventions we need this school there can be live debate there shouldn't be debate you need information in the first place to know whether the kids are learning and which kids are not. >> lisa we heard from the schools chancellor, said look we made changes. number one, no time limit on this test. you can take all day. number two, teacher valuations are not

in maryland, cuny colleges have 25% of the approved. affluent students that are more likely to attend four-year colleges of the big winners. their own reasons to fund their colleges this way and they have every right. let's not pretend it. -- need-basednt grants is the option where we're likely to succeed. in contrast, the system to public colleges lowers tuition at a subset of institutions. are institutions always the best fit for students? evidence suggest this may be a costly trade-off. a recent analysis found that 28 states and the district of columbia have no public colleges with four-year graduation rates over 50%. study, some of the adams scholarships in massachusetts which can only be used at public state colleges actually led to less graduation rates. why? because the subsidy was only good at a subset of schools and those schools have lower graduation rates than the schools. third, giving student aid and lenin them choose from a range of options will help drive innovation. my friends at new america have laid out a compelling ca