U.S. Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer and U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand today announced $77.5 million for the Rochester Institute of Technology’s National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) was included in the recently-passed, bipartisan Senate Fiscal Year (FY) 2019 Education Appropriations bill, which is expected to be passed by the House in the coming weeks. Schumer and Gillibrand said the new bill includes an additional $4.5 million above FY18 funding levels and is the fourth consecutive year of funding increases for NTID.
NTID provides a college education to deaf and hard-of-hearing students from around the country and gives them the skills and training they need to find jobs and advance their careers. Federal funding allows NTID to invest in critical areas such as instruction, sign language, and captioning services. With this higher funding level, NTID will be able to increase its grants in aid for students, reduce the costs of receiving a degree, as well as propose new technical programs that would offer specialized training for employment in high-tech industries.
“Rochester Institute of Technology’s National Technical Institute for the Deaf is one of the premier schools in the country for deaf and hard-of-hearing students, and has a phenomenal track record of preparing students for life after school,” said Senator Schumer. “I worked tirelessly in the Senate to secure this critical $4.5 million budget increase for the NTID, and will keep fighting on behalf of this top-notch organization so that it can continue adding to the local economy and creating a brighter future for the thousands of students who walk through its doors each year.”
“I’m pleased that this funding for the Rochester Institute of Technology’s National Technical Institute for the Deaf has been included in the Senate Education spending bill. The education that NTID provides helps create career opportunities for New York’s Deaf and hard-of-hearing community,” said Senator Gillibrand. “As the first technical college in the world for students who are Deaf or hard-of-hearing, NTID is a model for other academic programs that help prepare students for good-paying jobs, and I will continue to work to ensure that it has the resources it needs to succeed.”
“NTID is incredibly grateful for the strong support of Senator Schumer and Senator Gillibrand. With this funding, we can continue to provide the education and experiences deaf and hard-of-hearing students need to hit the ground running in scientific, technical and professional careers here in New York and around the world. This significant increase will also enable us to expand our regional outreach partnerships and thereby prepare more deaf and hard-of-hearing young people nationwide for education and careers in the STEM fields,” said NTID President Gerard J. Buckley.
According to NTID, approximately 94 percent of its graduates were placed in jobs commensurate with their education level, consistent with NTID’s average employment rate of 93 percent over the last 10 years. NTID’s first-year persistence rates and graduation rates for both sub-baccalaureate students and baccalaureate students continue to be higher than the national rates for students at two-year and four-year colleges. Using data from the Social Security Administration, NTID can show that its graduates, over their lifetimes, are employed at a much higher rate, earn substantially more, and participate at a much lower rate in government support programs like Social Security Insurance and Social Security Disability Insurance than students who withdraw from NTID or earn degrees from other institutions of higher education.
Schumer and Gillibrand have long fought for NTID. In the prior Fiscal Year 2018, Schumer and Gillibrand helped secure $73 million for NTID. In 2017, Schumer and Gillibrand helped secure $70 million for NTID, a $3 million increase from 2016. In 2016, Schumer and Gillibrand announced that the 2016 omnibus deal included over $70 million in federal funding for NTID, a $3 million dollar increase from 2015.