Invest in CUNY, get big returns

We recently introduced in the Legislature a package of bills to end CUNY tuition and to mandate appropriate numbers of academic advisors, mental health counselors and full-time faculty in the CUNY system. We seek a shift from the reliance on underpaid and overworked adjuncts to full-time, tenure-track professorships that can once again offer the world-class education that has produced 13 Nobel laureates.

This legislation also looks to address the mental health crisis on campus, as tens of thousands of students deal with depression and the stress of being unable to make ends meet, on top of the mental health devastation of the COVID crisis. CUNY has one mental health counselor for every 2,595 students, well below the number of mental health counselors recommended by the International Accreditation of Counseling Services, and nearly half the national average.

We introduced this legislation because despite CUNY’s success at helping people reach the middle class, a 2020 report from the state controller revealed that, often due to factors beyond their control, only 53% of CUNY students received their bachelor’s degree within six years.

Ramdat Singh is one of CUNY’s success stories. He was born and raised in the Bronx, one of eight children. His parents immigrated from Guyana and eventually became naturalized citizens. He is the first in his large family to attend college and to complete a degree.

Ramdat graduated from City College in 2015 and went on to earn his masters degree in secondary education at Brooklyn College. He was a full-time student, and he also worked full time throughout his studies. Today he teaches social studies in the Bronx, pays city and state income taxes, shops at New York City small businesses and is active in his community.

Even despite his glowing successes, he struggled. He had to work to support himself, and the benefits available to him through New York’s Tuition Assistance Program were limited. He aspired to join his department’s offering of a semester in Washington but couldn’t because of the cost.

Ramdat ultimately earned his diplomas. But for every Ramdat, there is a student whose path to a degree is blocked by the chronic underfunding of CUNY.

CUNY is our city’s engine of social mobility. The 1.4 million alumni who graduated over the past 50 years earn $65.8 billion annually — compared to a projected $32.6 billion if they had obtained only a high school degree. CUNY reports that the vast majority of its graduates continue to live in New York after completing their degrees, contributing to our economy and our tax base.

This enormous success comes despite starving CUNY year after year. Between 1990 and 2010, the percentage of the core budget covered by state funding decreased from 64% to 35%, per analysis by CUNY scholar Meghan Moore-Wilk. If CUNY had the same state funding per student today as it did in 1990, the budget would be $1 billion larger.

The lack of funding has tangible impacts. As tuition rises, students feel the strain. Some 2,900 adjunct faculty were pushed off CUNY’s payroll during the coronavirus pandemic, reducing course offerings and increasing class sizes. Approximately 1,000 were re-hired. Buildings have gone without maintenance. Before 1976, CUNY was tuition-free. Now students shoulder ever more of the tuition burden.

To unleash the full potential of our CUNY system, we propose a bold plan, A New Deal for CUNY, that would create a fully free CUNY that is once again a crown jewel of our country’s public higher education system.

The New Deal for CUNY would transform not just the education the students receive, but the ability of many more New Yorkers to access it.

This is a matter not just of economic growth and opportunity but of racial justice. CUNY’s student body is one of the most diverse in the nation, with a student enrollment of 21% Asian/Pacific Islander, 25% Black, 30% Hispanic students and 23% White. CUNY brings more students into the middle class than every single Ivy League school. Just imagine what it could do if we actually invested in it.

The crisis that has been thrust on us is at once the product of a virus but also of poor political decisions; it is also an opportunity. This is a moment for wealthy New Yorkers to pay their fair share in taxes, and to recognize that investing in CUNY today will result in a healthier economy for everyone tomorrow.

We are fighting for a New Deal for CUNY because it is a fight for economic and racial justice. But we are also fighting for a New Deal for CUNY because it is the key to the city’s economic recovery, growth and mobility, now and in the future.

Gounardes is a state senator from Brooklyn. Reyes is an assemblymember from the Bronx. Piquant is CUNY University Student Senate Chair.