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Testimony before the Board of Trustees, June 16, 2003

Philip A. Pecorino, Ph.D.

Queensborough Community College, CUNY

I urge you not to adopt a $300 tuition increase at the community colleges.

1. While increasing fulltime faculty lines and support services and advancing the educational technologies at the CC’s are all needed, they have been needed for over a decade and raising the revenue to fund them now and from tuition revenue that varies with enrollment is ill timed and not the most secure way to fund them.
2. Unlike with the other CUNY units the tuition increase is not absolutely needed for operating the community colleges thanks to the Maintenance of Effort Law and the support of the City Council who have realized the mission of the CUNY and have followed the law in letter but even more so in spirit.  Asking for the increase after the Council fought to preserve the current tuition will not sit well with many of the Council members who explained that their increasing the taxes of New York City residents in whatever ways they were locally empowered to do so was to continue services and among other things to keep tuition as it has been.  The Council is exercising a responsibility towards keeping the CUNY a public institution that the BOT should support.  The Council must keep faith with the people who placed them there and want CUNY to remain public and affordable.     
3. Asking for the tuition increase as a principled way to fund CUNY further alters the nature of CUNY as it moves CUNY closer to the revenue profile for a private university. (With the increase there will be 42% of the operating revenue coming from tuition).The tuition increase further “privatizes” what was once a public institution offering opportunities for better futures for its students and for all of the City of New York. The $300 CC tuition increase will NOT keep faith with the mission and tradition of CUNY.
4. The $300 CC tuition increase will NOT close the gap in tuition but would reduce it from $1500 to $1200-not enough to matter to most students deciding which unit to attend or at which to remain.  It is the $4000 amount necessitated by the state legislature and governor that will produce any enrollment migration.  This is particularly true at the at the comprehensive colleges with their specialized programs.  Either the student can afford the $4000 or not.  The $2500 or $2800 amount at some CC will not make the difference.
5. The $300 CC tuition increase will NOT ease the burden on the senior and comprehensive colleges.  Neither the money nor the faculty may be transferred to the senior and comprehensive colleges in CUNY.
6. At the CC's there are more part time students than at the senior and comprehensive colleges who are not eligible for TAP and they may need to reduce their course load, leave or postpone entering CUNY.
7. The $300 CC tuition increase will NOT address the fundamental problem of the under funding of CUNY by the legislature.  Raising the support of the legislature and raising an endowment for CUNY should be the primary concerns of the BOT and not raising tuition when it is not absolutely necessary.