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Testimony for the Committee on Higher Education of the New York City Council, February 13, 2001

Dr. Susan O’Malley
Professor of English, Kingsborough Community College and Professor of Liberal Studies, The Graduate School. Secretary of the University Faculty Senate; Member of the Community College Caucus; University-Wide Officer of the PSC

First, I want to thank you for holding hearings on the community colleges and the Master Plan. The City Council’s attention to the community colleges is much appreciated.

CUNY Community College Tuition Near Highest in Nation

Today I want to speak about the funding of the six CUNY community colleges and how we might strategize together to lower tuition and increase the City’s share of the funding. As you know the State Education Law states that student tuition should not be higher than 33 %. According to State Comptroller H. Carl McCall in his report on New York State’s Community Colleges, CUNY students currently pay in tuition 42% of the costs of their education. This percentage is considerably higher than what SUNY community college students pay. It also makes CUNY community college tuition one of the highest among public community colleges in the nation.

City Contribution to CUNY Way Down

While tuition has increased, the City’s contribution to the community colleges has decreased from a high of 42.4% in 1990-91 to about 23%/24% today. We all know that the decrease in City spending for the community colleges was caused by the recession in the 1990s, but it is time for us to figure out how to increase the City’s proportion of the funding for community colleges because we are no longer in a recession.

The City’s contribution has been held constant by what is known as the maintenance of effort that is part of the appropriations bill. This means that the City must maintain the same level of funding that it contributed the previous year. However, if the City allocates to the community colleges only what it spent the previous year, as costs increase the percentage of the city’s contribution decreases. This needs to be changed. We need to return to the State Education Law that mandates tuition at no more than one third of costs and have the state and city pick up the remainder of the costs.

56% of Courses Taught by Part-Timers

In addition to working to decrease the cost of tuition, we also need to replenish full-time faculty at the community colleges. According to the City University of New York’s 2001-02 Budget Request, the percentage of instruction by full-time faculty at the community colleges is only 44 %. This means that on the average 56% of courses are taught by part-time instructors.  At some of the community colleges this percentage is about 60%. We need money to be able to change part-time lines into full-time lines. Such a heavy reliance on part-timers diminishes the quality of education for our students because part-timers are not paid for office hours to work with students and must teach at two or three colleges to eke out a minimal financial existence.  Perhaps restoring full-time faculty lines to the community colleges and/or getting adjuncts paid for office hours could be a special project of the City Council.

I know that this hearing was to be on the CUNY Master Plan recently passed by the Board of Regents and that I have ignored the document. In many respects the Master Plan with its flagship programs and honor college is geared to recreating CUNY as an elite institution unconcerned with open admissions. The community colleges are not at the center of the Master Plan and appear almost as an afterthought. I think it is much more important for the City Council to work with the CUNY University Faculty Senate and the PSC, CUNY’s union, to figure out how to restore city funding for the community colleges and earmark this money to reduce student tuition and increase the percentage of instruction by full-time faculty by creating more full-time lines. As an officer of both the Faculty Senate and the union, I would very much like to work with you on this project.

Susan O’Malley