Barbara Bowen calls for full funding of CUNY
PSC officers were in Albany Tuesday, January 24 to testify before a joint hearing of the State Senate and Assembly finance committees on the Executive Budget for higher education. President Bowen, in her testimony, described a need for a multi-year phase-in of full funding for CUNY. She called for more progressive taxation in New York State to support investment in public higher education, and she offered a critique of Governor Cuomo’s Excelsior Scholarships. Of the proposed scholarship program, she said:
“Governor Cuomo’s Excelsior Scholarship proposal elevates the idea of free college tuition, reaffirms the value of CUNY and SUNY, and suggests that free public college is a realistic goal. That in itself is a breakthrough. The plan is presented as a promise to the people of New York that the state is committed to increasing economic mobility and sustaining the middle class. But the promise must be real. The Legislature can make it real by seizing the opportunity created by the proposal and making a commitment to restore full funding to CUNY and SUNY.” Download the union’s budget testimony.
President Bowen made a similar argument in this letter, which ran in the New York Times the day of the hearing.
CUNY’s analysis of the Executive Budget is posted here.
