Oppose Midyear Cuts to SUNY Community Colleges

Level of Government: State

As a constituent and a SUNY community college employee, I am writing to ask for your support for SUNY community colleges by rejecting the governor's proposal to cut these colleges in the Deficit Reduction Plan. This proposed plan cuts these campuses by $24 million or $260 per full-time equivalent student. It just doesn't make sense to levy a midyear cut to community college state base aid. These institutions are the gateway to achieving a college degree for thousands of people. This is especially true in times of economic crisis.

In fact, the demand for the academic services provided by these campuses has gone up dramatically as people have lost their jobs and seek further education and technical skills to become more marketable in an extremely difficult job market. Moreover, our community colleges are often the only choice for many qualified high school graduates who cannot afford private colleges and who are shut out of SUNY four-year institutions due to SUNY's lack of capacity to place them.

Cutting SUNY community colleges is counterproductive. It is through public higher education that working class New Yorkers are afforded the opportunity to earn a college degree and to obtain a good job. Our state's unemployment rate is now over nine percent and rising. Taking away educational opportunities for first-time students and returning students will not improve the unemployment rate in this state and will only serve to make it worse.

Lately, we have heard a great deal regarding the need for our state to stop relying on Wall Street. I agree, however, all the discourse has been centered solely on budget cuts. There is no alternative proposed plan that would enable us to build a sustainable economic future. Investing in our SUNY community colleges and the public higher education sector as a whole, should be a major part of our state's economic plan.

President Obama recently acknowledged and highlighted the important role that community colleges play in fostering economic growth by his historic visit to Hudson Valley Community College. The president could have gone to any state in the country to talk about the importance of community colleges. Yet, he chose New York state and Hudson Valley, a SUNY community college. The president recognizes the value that we have in our SUNY community colleges. It is extremely disturbing to me and simply unwise for our own state not to recognize this value. This has been exemplified by years of inadequate state funding to these campuses and by the governor's midyear cut proposal.

I know there are hard choices to make during these very difficult economic times. SUNY community colleges are the right choice and should be a priority during budget negotiations. It is time to get away from the over reliance on Wall Street and to start tapping into the abundant intellectual capital that our public higher education institutions can provide. I ask that you reject the counterproductive proposal of a midyear cut to our SUNY community colleges and bring this important issue up during your conference budget discussions.

I would greatly appreciate a response to my letter. Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

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