New York City’s new budget increases its for the City University of New York system, or CUNY, by $77.6 million, from Mayor Eric Adams’ earlier proposal — helping to make up for $95 million in cumulative cuts in previous years of the Adams istration and bringing the city’s total up to about $1.3 billion.
While the state pays most of the bills for the system’s $3.2 billion operating budget for its four-year senior colleges, the city covers the lion’s share of the $1.2 billion for its two-year community colleges.
In addition to the $95 million the mayor cut in previous years from the CUNY budget, the system is also facing a loss of federal pandemic aid, which brought in $112 million in the fiscal year that ended in June as City Comptroller Brad Lander noted in an April report.
Earlier this year, CUNY laid off 26 full-time faculty at Queens College and cut 75 part-time adjuncts and non-teaching positions at York College, while axing 275 class sections there to help balance its books. Community colleges, for their part, have left open positions unfilled to balance their books. In addition to operating costs, CUNY leaders say the system also needs $3.5 billion to address maintenance, repairs and renovations for its dilapidated buildings across its 25 campuses around the city.
CUNY Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez statement about the budget praised “The $15 million for CUNY’s seven community colleges” he said will help offset tuition loss from enrollment declines and help cover a range of operational needs that have a direct impact on our students.”
While CUNY’s community colleges in particular have struggled with enrollment since the pandemic, an upward trend is emerging. According to a meeting of the Board of Trustees subcommittee on May 28 overall undergraduate enrollment of new students jumped to79,656 from 74,687, a 6.7% increase comparing May 8 of this year to last year. Overall, enrollment is down about 15% since before the pandemic, according to the comptroller’s report.
‘Engine of Economic Mobility’
City Council leaders on Sunday also pointed to that $15 million in “operational restoration,” along with $10.1 million for academic program CUNY Accelerate, Complete and Engage (ACE), $5.9 million for CUNY Reconnect, an initiative to recruit returning adult students, and $4.5 million for CUNY ASAP, a nationally-lauded program that offers enrolled students comprehensive that featuring tuition waivers, Metrocards, tutoring and advisors.
In April, CUNY vice chancellor and chief operating officer Hector Batista testified to the New York City Council’s higher education committee that the university’s 300 buildings comprise an aging infrastructure that requires careful planning.
“Some of the years, most challenges are due to the aging infrastructure and include boilers, chillers, HVAC equipment, elevators, windows, roofs and electrical infrastructure,” said Batista at that meeting, noting that the average building is 62-years-old. “This historical depth adds to complexity about the maintenance and upgrading strategies, emphasizes the need for careful planning and execution and preserving these assets for future generations.”
CUNY has 497 ongoing projects valued at $3.5 billion towards the upkeep and enhancement of its facilities, and recently completed 44 projects totaling $555 million, according to Batista.
“CUNY is the greatest engine of economic mobility in our city, and it is crucial that we continue to invest in our public colleges,” Councilmember Eric Dinowitz, chair of the higher education committee, told THE CITY on Monday in a written statement. “In the face of expiring stimulus funds, reduced enrollment, and an executive budget that slashed CUNY’s finances to the bone, we secured $64 million more in our adopted budget for operating expenses and critical programs like ACE, ASAP, CUNY CARES, and CUNY reconnect. Thanks to the NYC Council, we also have capital funds critical to maintenance and upgrades of CUNY facilities.”
But while political leaders celebrated the funding increase, James Davis, chair of the Professional Staff Congress union representing more than 30,000 faculty and staff said that “It’s really not enough. There’s so much farther to go. He noted that the money wouldn’t be enough to fill more than 300 positions that are currently vacant.
“With the fiscal projection that the city is making now, having improved so dramatically, it doesn’t make sense to us to continue to underfund the university” that, Davis continued, “is demonstrably one of the best investments that the city can make [as] the seven community colleges do such important work in propelling people into the middle class and onto the next chapter in their lives.”
