The City University of New York (CUNY), the largest urban university in all of the United States, has seen a drastic growth in enrollment over the recent number of years due to its affordable, high-quality education. As a second-year student in one of the institution’s oldest colleges, I can attest to that by comparing myself to other peers my age. I have yet to take out a loan, while others in private universities should be approaching the hundred thousand mark in debt fees.
However, this may all change after New York governor Andrew Cuomo’s decision to cut the city’s funding to CUNY by about $500 million a year. This doesn’t help at all students on top of the ongoing trend of an increase of $300 to tuition fees per year despite the number of courses offered shrinking, part-time faculty lay-offs, and the trimming of finances set for student services. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for my communications professor last semester, herself an adjunct professor, who complained about this exact same thing: an increase in student tuition, yet a decrease in the amount received each paycheck for her and other professors within the institution.
The news of this proposal comes soon after plans came to light that Cuomo envisions investing $3 billion in a complete renovation of Penn Station as well as a revamp of thirty MTA stations. Questions quickly rose, as to how these plans would be paid for, shortly after the news broke, but it seemed we got our answer soon enough. This cut has angered students and professors all across the university’s twenty-six institutions to the point where protests have been conducted and petitions have been started.
It seems as if those attending or working at CUNY establishments aren’t the only ones who have negative feelings around the budget plans, Mayor Bill de Blasio being one of them. “There are two things in the budget that are not fair to New York City, that will be harmful to New York City, that will set us back, and will particularly set back our students at CUNY,” de Blasio said. Views of Cuomo from university students will only continue to plummet as the New York Post has recently published an article detailing yet another one of Andrew Cuomo’s outrageous plans: combine the City University with the State University of New York (SUNY) to pursue control over the former.
While current students should graduate relatively unscathed, it’s future generations of CUNY students that we should be worried about. Tuition is only going to keep increasing while there will be fewer professors available to provide the excellent education that the City University has always been known for. This is not how it should be for CUNY, a university known for its free education at one point in time.
If you wish to help aid in the fight against Cuomo’s push, feel free to sign the petition in the link below:
