Enriching Education: Modern States Education Alliance

The college admissions scandal exposed something most Americans already knew – that some families have the wealth and influence to pave the way for a better education for their children. The reality for most people, however, as evidenced by student debt exceeding $1.5 trillion, is that For many young people, college affordability is a barrier to furthering their education. 

Philanthropist & Education Reformer Steve Klinsky started the non-profit Modern States Education Alliance to give students of all ages an alternative path to receiving college credits.

The non-profit provides top quality online college courses and online textbooks for free. The courses prepare students to take the corresponding CLEP exam, which with a passing grade, can earn learners college credits at 2,900 traditional universities, from Ohio State to Morehouse. CLEP exams are offered by the College Board and Modern States also pays the testing fee ($87) for learners who compete its courses.

Steve Klinsky has been an active philanthropist and education reformer for many years. He founded the Gary Klinsky Children Centers after school program in 1993. That program has served thousands of children in New York City’s most disadvantaged public schools and since then, has given or raised over $20 million of public and private funds, and has been replicated in Miami as the team charity of the Miami Heat basketball franchise. In 1999, he wrote the application for, and organized, the first charter school in the State of New York (the Sisulu-Walker Charter School of Harlem) in partnership with Dr. Wyatt Tee Walker and others. He has helped start, organize and fund numerous high performing charter schools since then. He succeeded Jeb Bush as chairman of the advisory board of Harvard’s Program for Education Policy and Governance, and endowed the Klinsky Professorship of Leadership and Social Progress at Harvard Law School, where he also serves on the Dean’s Advisory Council. He began writing editorials describing the Modern States idea in 2012, and conceived and organized the “Freshman Year for Free™” initiative beginning around the year 2014.Professionally, Klinsky is founder and CEO of New Mountain Capital, a growth-oriented private equity firm that has overseen more that $20 billion of capital commitments since inception, and which has added or created over 26,000 jobs at the companies it owns net of job losses. Klinsky grew up in the Detroit area, where he was educated in Michigan public schools and completed his B.A. with high honors from the University of Michigan in approximately two years (9/74-12/76) using the College Board advance placement tests and other means. He then earned his MBA from Harvard Business School (class of 1979) and his J.D. law degree from Harvard Law School (class of 1981) in four years instead of five, as part of the accelerated JD/MBA program. He is married to the author Maureen Sherry with four children, and lives in New York City.