|
Testimony at City Council Hearing of Higher
Education Committee
Thursday,
June 12, 2003 at 10 A.M.
DINA
DAHBANY-MIRAGLIA,
QUEENSBOROUGH COMMUNITY
COLLEGE
Honorable
Members:
The
City University of New York's mission has been, since its inception
over 100 years ago, to provide free higher education for New
York City's poor and disenfranchised. The introduction of tuition in
1976 began the process of eroding CUNY's ability to honor its
responsibilities to the people of New York.
Tuition
is a monster. It actually encourages city and state government to
reduce CUNY's budget. What is worse, instituting tuition allows
increasing tuition when it is counter-productive: the proposed $300
rise in community college tuition.
CUNY's
community colleges do not require the $300 proposed raise in
tuition. Yet the Board of Trustees will be asking you to impose this
rise, a rise that will severely affect our city's poorest and most
handicapped socioculturally: single parents, women, racial and
ethnic minorities, the foreign-born, the over-forties, and the
disabled.
Too
many of our students work 40+ hours a week at minimum-wage jobs.
They barely make it from paycheck to paycheck. $300 is a fortune. We
should be reducing tuition by $300--even eliminating it--for the
community colleges and well as the senior colleges.
Higher
education is no longer the bailiwick of the privileged few. It
cannot be. Our economy is a mess. A poorly educated, minimally
skilled polity is a luxury we cannot afford. Our mission, an
honorable one, has become an obligation which CUNY's faculty,
administrators and support staff must be allowed to fulfill. We need
your help.
Please
do not support the proposed rise.
|
