New Deal for CUNY must pass this year
As two newly elected representatives of Queens in the New York State Assembly, one of our top legislative priorities was to sign on as cosponsors of the New Deal for CUNY as soon as we could. Why? Because the campuses of the community colleges and the senior colleges of the City University transform lives, and legislation that would fully fund CUNY and provide our constituents a tuition-free college education would not just be a blessing for the people of Queens, but it would be a transformative opportunity for all New Yorkers.
Being the children of immigrants, both our families arrived in New York City hoping they could make a brighter future for ourselves. The higher education we received here in our great city was instrumental in not only helping us provide better lives for our families, but also in setting us on a path to public service so that we could open the door to opportunity for more New Yorkers.
Today, there are roughly 7,700 CUNY students in our two districts and more than 240,000 throughout the city. These students are exceptional and represent the best of what our city can offer. Three-fifths of them are the first generation in their family to attend college and 79% are students of color. More than a third were born outside the U.S. mainland, and many more, like us, are the children of immigrants.
For CUNY students — including the roughly 60% who are living on family incomes below $30,000 per year — CUNY is a life-changing, economic mobility dynamo with a nation-leading track record of helping poor and working-class students achieve a better life for themselves and their families. CUNY powers our greater economy as well, graduating tens of thousands of students per year, most of whom choose to live, work and pay taxes in New York State.
Yet, for all CUNY has done for us, Albany and City Hall have repaid it with decades of inadequate funding. Last year, we began to exit this austerity approach, but there is so much more to do.
Imagine what CUNY could do for our immigrant communities, students of color and low-income New Yorkers if it wasn’t plagued with faculty and staff shortages? If its students had the mental health counselors and academic advisors they need? If it had modern labs and facilities and buildings in good repair? How much more vibrant and resilient would our state be if CUNY and the people it serves were a top funding priority?
The New Deal for CUNY can make that CUNY — and that New York —a reality. That’s why most of the Democrats who control the state Senate and Assembly are cosponsors of the New Deal for CUNY. Some of the hallmarks of this bill include minimum staff-to-student ratios, pay parity for the adjunct faculty who teach most of CUNY’s classes, a five-year plan to fix CUNY’s crumbling infrastructure and, of course, a tuition-free world class education. The full cost, to be phased in over five years, would be roughly $1.7 billion — just three-quarters of 1% of the state’s annual budget.
Free CUNY tuition would flatten the barriers to higher education that the state’s Tuition Assistance Program and the Excelsior Scholarship are struggling to surpass, allowing every student in the city to imagine the life they might make for themselves with a college degree. It would reaffirm the founding mission of CUNY to educate the children of the whole people of our city. And it would make full public funding for an obvious public good the standard policy of New York State.
Gov. Hochul has not endorsed the New Deal for CUNY — yet. She did, however, work with the Legislature to increase CUNY funding more last year than any governor in decades. Her budget proposal for next year gives CUNY funding a small boost but doesn’t keep up with the five-year reinvestment plan for public higher education envisioned in her first State of the State. Even worse, it would increase tuition.
New York can do better! The Legislature should keep working toward the New Deal for CUNY, reject tuition hikes and further increase CUNY funding so that our students can have the university they deserve. That’s the message we’re sharing with our constituents and our colleagues in the Assembly. To all others, we urge you to tell your legislators why full funding for a tuition-free CUNY is important to you and the future of our state.