Cuomo Steals $500 Million From CUNY To Pay For Subways

Nicole Gelinas in the NY Post:

The subways, commuter rails, buses, bridges and tunnels need $29 billion every five years in repairs and upgrades to barely keep up with a growing city. The fares you pay don’t cover this cost — they don’t even cover paying the people who run the trains to come to work.

So where to get the money?

Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio said late last year that, don’t worry, they’d find it. To fill the gap left over after the MTA borrows money and Washington sends us their share, the state would put in $8.3 billion over five years, and the city would put in $2.5 billion.

People wondered last year where Cuomo and de Blasio would get this money, and were told to wait till next year.

Well, it’s next year — and the governor’s new budget makes the answer clear.

The grandchildren of the L-train hipsters will pay. Instead of putting in $8.3 billion, Cuomo has reserved only $1.4 billion over five years — a little less than $300 million a year.

Worse: To pay for this, he’s slashing the state’s funding of the City of University of New York — by about $500 million a year.

The rest of the costs get shunted off to the future, when Governor Cuomo is long gone from power and people won't blame him for the mess he has made.

As for CUNY, the Post reported yesterday that Cuomo has hatched a secret plan to subsume CUNY into SUNY, in part because he doesn't control CUNY and doesn't like anything he doesn't control and in part because the CUNY board members don't suck up to him the way the SUNY board members do and he hates not having suck-ups on the CUNY board.

So it's all good, you know - for Cuomo, at any rate.

As for the rest of us, the city's university system is on the chopping the block, the transit system is falling into third world status and the "luxury" buildings keep going up without the needed infrastructure to support the increased population numbers going up with them.

Quite an agenda from our governor.

Cuomo Wants To Destroy CUNY Because CUNY Board Isn't Nice To Him

So reports the NY Post:

Gov. Cuomo ultimately wants to take over of the City University of New York and merge it with the state’s public university system, sources told The Post.

Cuomo officials are examining how the State University of New York can incorporate CUNY’s four-year colleges and graduate schools, while slashing administrative costs at both institutions, the sources said.

“It’s a precursor to a merger, but dismantling CUNY won’t be easy,” one political source said.

...

His obsession with CUNY runs deep.

“He just has a thing about CUNY,” said a high-ranking state government source. “This has to do with Andrew not controlling it. What he doesn’t control he likes to destroy.”

Cuomo currently has little control over CUNY because the appointees to the board are largely leftovers from the Pataki and Bloomberg administrations. SUNY’s board, conversely, is littered with Cuomo allies.

A political consultant said Cuomo is rankled that the state pays 46 percent of CUNY’s $3 billion budget yet “they treat him like s–t.”

In addition, this apparently hurts him:
 

The CUNY faculty union endorsed Bill de Blasio in his mayoral primary but did not endorse Cuomo for governor.

We are governed by a child-man.

Seriously.

Cuomo Loses One To De Blasio - For Now

Andrew Cuomo put somewhere between $800 million and $1 billion dollars in state aid cuts for NYC into the state budget in an attempt to further harm his "frenemy" Bill de Blasio - but this time, Cuomo's attack on de Blasio backfired.

Here's the Daily News on that:

Andrew Cuomo backs off budget proposal that would have cost NYC an extra $800M after protest from Bill de Blasio

Score one for the mayor.

Hours after Mayor de Blasio vowed Thursday to do whatever it takes to scuttle up to $800 million in costs Gov. Cuomo wanted to force the city to cough up, Cuomo began to backpedal on the costly proposal.

Cuomo presented a budget in his State of the State address Wednesday that called for the de Blasio administration to take on massive CUNY and Medicaid bills now paid by the state — but by the end of Thursday, he was pledging the city would not have to pay a penny.

Calling the cuts “harmful” and “debilitating,” Hizzoner said he’d go all out to sink the plan.

“There’s a phrase from American history, ‘By any means necessary.’ I would invoke that phrase,” de Blasio said when asked how he’d turn back the plan. “We’ll do whatever will work.

“We will fight these cuts. We will ask the assistance of both houses of the Legislature in fighting these cuts. They are unprecedented and they are unfair to this city,” said de Blasio, who has been feuding with Cuomo since summer after he accused him of governing with a vendetta.

Amid the criticism from de Blasio and budget watchdogs, Cuomo changed his tune on the plan — suggesting the point of the proposal was simply to get players to the table to cut costs for CUNY and Medicaid.

“This is the beginning of the budget process. The budget process goes on for months. This is really the beginning of the discussion,” he said on NY1 Thursday afternoon.

“At the end of the day, what you’ll see is it won’t cost New York City a penny,” Cuomo said. “We have to reduce the cost of the bureaucracy at CUNY. We have to reduce the cost of administration for Medicaid.”

Cuomo blamed the "tabloids" for causing trouble:

Taking note of a Daily News front page with the headline “Hey, Blaz, hope you played Powerball!” Cuomo said: “God bless the New York City tabloids. They can try to make trouble in the best of news and that’s what they’re doing here.

Oh yeah, the tabloids were causing trouble - because we all know how much trouble it is when the newspapers report that the governor's budget will cost the city between $800 million (reported by the Daily News) and $1 billion (a figure Politico NY reported.)

Cuomo's continuing to screw with de Blasio, it seems to be the only thing that motivates him these days other than that vision he has of himself as the new Robert Moses.

But just as happened with Cuomo's vaunted homeless policy of mandating municipalities take homeless people off the streets at gunpoint when the temperature hits freezing (another doozy aimed at hurting de Blasio that ended up hurting Cuomo instead), Cuomo has had to "backpedal" on the budget proposals that cut so much from NYC.

I would expect that Cuomo will try other ways to stick it to de Blasio (and thus NYC) in this budget before it's all said and done.

The irony is, the only place Cuomo shows any strength in polling is in NYC.

That's why, with headlines blaring that Cuomo was looking to destroy the city with budget cuts, he has no choice but to "backpedal" and say, "Oh, no - we're just starting the negotiation process here."

De Blasio may be weakened politically, but Cuomo's not in much better shape (he's at 39% in the last Siena poll) and if he takes a hit to his NYC approval numbers, he'll be in the mid-twenties before long.

With the NY Times and the other papers taking aim at Cuomo this morning, this doesn't look to be a battle with the city that Cuomo can win.

But we'll see.

Evil is like water - it looks to find a route no matter what.

Cuomo Cuts $485 Million From CUNY Budget

He can characterize this any way he wants - they're budget cuts:

ALBANY — Gov. Andrew Cuomo pushed back against news coverage that said his budget proposal hurts New York City, saying that it would be “absurd” to expect increases in funding to address homelessness and expand infrastructure without an offset elsewhere.

Cuomo's proposed $145.3 billion plan includes billions for these capital outlays, but was balanced by $485 million in contributions that Cuomo wants Mayor Bill de Blasio to direct toward CUNY as well as $180 million this fiscal year and $476 million next year in additional Medicaid costs.

“It's an absurd premise that they're making,” Cuomo told Brian Lehrer on WNYC. “You can't say to the state, always pay more for everything. That's an absurd position.”

Let's see, the state provides $485 million toward CUNY, but starting with this budget, the state will no longer do that.

That's not a "cut"?

Not according to Cuomo:

Hours after New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio pledged to push back against budget proposals that could hurt the city’s bottom line, Gov. Andrew Cuomo in an interview said he wasn’t trying to cut spending, but find “efficiencies.”

Speaking on NY1 on Thursday afternoon, Cuomo was reacting to growing concerns among city officials that his proposed $145 billion budget would force the city to come up with as much as $1 billion in funds for CUNY and Medicaid.

...

Cuomo’s own budget memorandum calls for the city to assume $485 million in costs for CUNY by July 1.

“CUNY, like any institution like the Medicaid management, like the housing authorities—we have to constantly work to streamline,” he said. 

Streamline?  Efficiencies?

Sure - $485 million of them.

It's good to see Cuomo on the defensive for this abomination he calls a budget.

That he needed to defend this on NY1 this morning is a result of 24 hours of negative news coverage about the harm he's doing to NYC - the only place in the state where he's got a decent approval rating.

Cuomo's SUNY Legacy: 30% Higher Tuition And More Hikes Coming

From Joseph Spector at Gannett:

ALBANY – As students at the State University of New York head back to class, they will be doing so with fewer classmates and higher tuition.

Enrollment at the 64 SUNY campuses has dropped 3.5 percent over the past five years, with the biggest dropoff at its 30 community colleges, a review of records by Gannett's Albany Bureau showed.

At the same time, tuition has increased 30 percent since 2010 to $6,470 a year for incoming freshmen this fall.

Tuition hikes every year for the last five years?

You betcha!

And more coming:

SUNY officials, however, head into the new semester facing uncertainty over future tuition increases as a five-year agreement with the state Legislature to increase tuition $300 a year, called SUNY 2020, expires next year.

Zimpher said SUNY would ask for a five-year renewal of the $300-a-year tuition increase, but may try to limit the increases to less than $300 each year.

"We're still at the limit of $300. We don't think it has to go to $300 for every one of our sectors. So our primary theme will be: roll it over. We had a 2020 goal," she said.

When I first started teaching fifteen years ago, a student who was living in public housing could attend a SUNY school and receive a degree with a minimal amount of debt.

Pell, TAP and FSEOG would cover all of the tuition and almost all of the room/board expenses.

They would have to take out a small subsidized loan a year to cover the rest - usually no more than $2000.

If the financing stayed the same for all four years, they were graduating with loan debt of less than $10,000 - not optimal, but certainly not prohibitive to starting a career, having a family, going to grad school, etc.

These days, those same students are getting loaded up with the maximum in both subsidized/unsubsidized Stafford loans ($5500), they may be getting a Perkins loan as well, the parents are getting a PLUS loan and even then it's not enough to cover tuition/room/board/books.

Since the amount in loans a student can take out goes up from freshman year and some of their loans are unsubsidized, after four years they're graduating from a SUNY with over $25,000 in debt - and that's not including the PLUS loans the parents got nailed with (which have to be paid back immediately, plus inteterst.)

Take a look at Stony Brook this year:

The total cost of attendance - tuition, fees, room and board - is $20,811.

That's before any other expenses - books, living expenses, clothing allowance, etc.

Here's how the financing works for a student in need in my experience as a high school teacher of seniors.

The maximum Pell grant award $5,775 a year, the TAP award is usually about $5,000 a year.  So that's $10,575.

Some students receive the FSEOG grant (which can be as high as $4,000), but I've never seen it higher than $1,500.

Let's add $1,500 to our student's grant total - $12,075.

The DIRECT costs of attendance - the money Stony Brook takes right away at the beginning - is $20,811 (broken up by semester, but you get the idea.)

Our student is $8,736 in the hole for the DIRECT costs.

They've gotten some work-study aid, but that money has to be worked for, won't come until much later in the semester, so that's no help here.

Stony Brook gives our student the maximum Stafford loans for a freshman - $5,500 - and that takes the student down to $3,236 still needed to cover expenses.

Stony Brook doles out $2,500 to the parent with a PLUS loan and hands out another $1,500 in a Perkins loan to the student.

The student now has all DIRECT costs paid for, though there's no money left over because origination fees for the loans (over 1% per loan) take away the excess.

How do they buy books, pay for living expenses, etc?

Well, you hope they've got a little money saved from a summer job or the parents have a little money to give them when they head off to school.

They'll have to work during the school year - that's not so bad, they have work study money, so they can get a job on campus - but money's going to be tight and they're looking at an awful lot of debt when they graduate (on top of which, the parents are looking at some debt while they're in school.)

This is an imaginary scenario, but it's one I see with high school seniors who come to me for college advisement.

This same student, if attending a CUNY, would come out with little to no debt because there are no room/board costs (though tuition and fees at CUNY have skyrocketed the last few years as well), so I often say think long and hard about attending a CUNY school, at least for the first two years, then going away as an upperclassman, to minimize the loan debt to themselves and their parents.

But these are young adults and young adults will do (and should do) what young adults want to do - an important component of the college experience is for students to learn how to make judicious financial decisions or understand there may be consequences when those decisions are made less judiciously.

So many often sign up for the SUNY because they want the "college experience" - the going away from home, the dorm-living, etc.

Also, the CUNY schools have gotten much more competitive in terms of admissions over the past few years and I have seen some students get into four year SUNY schools but get locked out of the four year CUNY schools (City, Hunter, Baruch, Brooklyn) and have to attend the SUNY school.

The Gannett story says while enrollment at SUNY has dropped 3.5% over the past five years (mostly due to the improving economy that sees fewer go to community college for retraining and some a choose a private school over a SUNY), employment at SUNY is up 2%.

SUNY claims the tuition increases - and after five straight years of them, they promise they'll be more - are necessary to keep up with costs, infrastructure, etc.

I understand that costs go up over the years (though I'm not sure what they're spending that money on is worthwhile, that's a post for another day), but passing the costs on to students and their families DIRECTLY instead of helping out by getting more money from the state, is NOT the way to pay for them.

Governor Cuomo, ever happy to keep state costs low and pass the buck onto working and middle class people, is getting some pushback from the Heavy Hearts in the Legislature:

ALBANY -- A bill before Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo represents the opening punch in a fight that will determine how much tuition will increase for 700,000 public college students and their families in coming years.

The bill demands that the Cuomo administration keep increases in state aid in closer pace with annual tuition hikes, which have jumped 30 percent in the past five years at the State University of New York and City University of New York. While state aid increased far more in those years compared with the preceding era of flat and reduced funding, it still grew at less than half the rate of tuition.

 The bill overwhelmingly passed by the State Legislature would require the state to cover inflationary and mandated costs at the State University of New York and City University of New York, such as utility bills, building rentals and salaries and benefits. It also would require the state budget to cover mandated costs for programs and equipment at SUNY's three teaching hospitals in Stony Brook, Brooklyn and Syracuse.

Legislators seek to require a greater state commitment than is in the 2011 law that created the "rational tuition" plan of annual increases. The plan was created to better fund the systems, after state aid cuts, to hire and retain professors to raise academic performance, and to avoid unpredictable spikes in tuition forced by crises.

The public universities were hit with deeper cuts than many state programs in the state fiscal crisis of 2008-2011.

In that 2011 law, the Cuomo administration agreed to a "maintenance of effort" in state aid. That law only required that the state not cut SUNY and CUNY aid from 2011 to 2016.

"The maintenance of effort was maintenance-of-effort-light," said Assembly Higher Education Committee chairwoman Deborah Glick (D-Manhattan), the bill's co-sponsor.

That tuition plan, however, sunsets next year. Cuomo, SUNY and CUNY are expected to ask the legislature to extend it in what will be one of the major initiatives of the 2016 legislative session.

"We are looking at what is actually needed to maintain a level of support," Glick said, a level "that ensures that the promise to students that, if they pay more -- and it's a big jump -- that the state will ensure the promise of more full-time faculty and additional sections of course work to make it easier to complete your degree in four years."

We'll see how this all plays out - you can pretty much bet Cuomo will look to pass most of the increased costs onto students and the Legislature, not exactly the bravest of assemblies in standing up to Cuomo, will agree to some "compromise" that continues to screw students and their families.

New York State used to have an excellent state university system that was very affordable.

The state continues to have an excellent university system, but the affordability part of the equation is by the wayside.

SUNY officials point out that SUNY remains cheaper than private schools in New York and some other state university systems.

That's swell.

But the affordability factor has still be eroded away over the years, helped greatly by Governor Andrew Cuomo, and that certainly doesn't help students from low income families having to take out $25,000+ in loans or their families who may be taking on debt for them as well.

Cuomo's always worried about his "legacy" - how he will be thought about in the future.

One big part of his legacy is what he hasn't done to help SUNY students and their families.

His SUNY legacy is, 30% higher tuition (and more hikes coming), SUNY costs up, and state aid held flat. 

Cuomo To Mandate All CUNY And SUNY Students Do Internships

Because what all students need is to be forced to do free labor in order to get a college degree, Governor Cuomo is going to mandate "experiential learning" for all CUNY and SUNY grads:

Part Q - Make experiential learning a graduation requirement at SUNY and CUNY

Purpose:

This bill would make experiential learning a mandatory requirement for graduation at the State University of New York and the City University of New York to ensure our public institutions of higher education connect students to employers and jobs.

Summary of Provisions and Statement in Support:

This bill would amend Education Law to require the Boards of Trustees of the State University of New York and the City University of New York to each pass a resolution  making experiential learning or applied learning activities a mandatory requirement for graduation.

To gain employment after graduation, it is no longer sufficient for a student simply to attain a degree or certificate in a specific field. Rather, students must also demonstrate work readiness and prior relevant experience to prospective employers. Experiential learning such as cooperative education ("co-op") and internships provide a win-win-win for New York's businesses, colleges, and -- most importantly -- students.

Budget Implications:

Enactment of this bill is necessary to implement the 2015-16 Executive Budget.

Effective Date: This bill would take effect April 1, 2015

Even better, notice this language:

Enactment of this bill is necessary to implement the 2015-16 Executive Budget.

Experiential learning may be a great idea but there's no reason why it needs to be mandated by the governor and shoved into the budget with a "Yay or Nay" vote from the Legislature.

Let each SUNY and CUNY program make it's own decisions on "experiential learning" and enact (or not) their own proposals accordingly.

The Stony Brook Statesman covered this story yesterday SUNY students are NOT happy with this AT ALL:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo is pushing for experiential learning through internships and/or part-time jobs as a new graduation requirement for all SUNY students in his proposed SUNY budget for next year.

Frederick Walter, the former president of the Stony Brook University Senate who currently serves on the SUNY Senate, said Stony Brook is ahead of the curve as the current Stony Brook Curriculum calls for experiential learning upon graduation; however, how the Governor describes experiential learning and how Stony Brook University does are completely different.

The SBC asks that students at some point learn through experience, whether it be through internships, jobs, research, scholarly activity or service learning, among other experiences. Cuomo’s plan would mandate experiential learning through internships.

According to Walter, an internship would definitely help a business or journalism major, but certain students would not benefit from working as an office intern, but they rather need experience in study labs doing research and experimentations.

Issues with experiential learning being mandated by the Governor go beyond a lack of an explanation of exactly what experiential learning is. There are over 60 SUNY campuses, not counting CUNY schools, which also fall under the list of SUNY campuses.

As Walter pointed out, this mandate would be “a system-wide thing. There are 400,000 students in the SUNY system. It is huge…there aren’t enough companies in the state of N.Y. offering internships.” Not only that, but with over 60 unique schools, mandating the same requirements for all would be foolish, Walter said.

Stony Brook University professor and Director of the Center for News Literacy Dean Miller noted additional issues. Experiential learning should be a requirement “only if students have access to it” and “so many students can’t afford internships because so many of them are unpaid,” he said.

Some are wondering just where Cuomo got his education expertise:

Requiring all students to gain an internship would force certain disadvantaged students into picking up unpaid spots, which is “lunacy,” Miller said. 

Cuomo has faced opposition for trying to mandate this.

Walter said many SUNY Senate members wonder why the governor is mandating curriculum, as no governor has done so previously. 

Cuomo is a politician not a professor, therefore he does not fully understand what he is mandating.

The response from Cuomo?

The Governor’s Press Office did not comment.

Since when does the governor get to act like dictator in New York State and mandate whatever he wants in the budget?

Since Pataki took the Legislature to court and won that power:

Cuomo is also potentially testing the limits with which policy matters can be included in appropriations bills, a matter that was first considered in the landmark ruling Pataki v. Silver.

That ruling allowed governor’s significant leeway in budget-making powers, which Gov. David Paterson used to his own advantage in ramming major spending cuts through the “extender” process when the budget was passed its April 1 due date.

Cuomo's shoving more and more policy into the budget in order to push legislation that he wants that might be more problematic if the Legislature were to vote on it straight up.

This "experiential learning" mandate is particularly problematic because, as the Stony Brook Statesman notes, there are 400,000 students in the SUNY system.

There are another 480,000 CUNY students - that means there an awful lot of internships students are going to be looking for in order too graduate if Cuomo gets his way.

If you thought Cuomo's education reform plans for K-12 are insane, take heart - so are his education reform plans for CUNY and SUNY.

Isn't it time we take back our democratic form of government from the autocratic Governor Cuomo?

Vallone Scholarship Back For CUNY Students

This is great news:

Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito and a slew of elected officials announced today the restoration of the CUNY Merit-Based Scholarship Program, formerly known as the Peter Vallone scholarship.

In the new city budget, the City Council allocated $11.1 million into the program that will provide merit-based scholarships to New York City high school student graduates who are able to maintain a B average and above at City University of New York schools. The program will start in the fall of 2014 and will grant first-year students $400 dollars per semester for supplies, textbooks and other expenses.

The scholarship was named after the former longtime speaker of the City Council, Peter Vallone, father of current Councilman Paul Vallone. Ms. Mark-Viverito, an alumnus of a Baruch College graduate program, celebrated the restoration of the scholarship after her predecessor, Christine Quinn, cut funding to it.

“The CUNY Merit Scholarship represents our commitment today to our city’s tomorrow by providing $11.1 million to reward graduates for their hard work and academic achievement and to connect them with the support and resources they need to succeed,” she said.

Christine Quinn cut the scholarship completely in retaliation against Vallone because he had pissed her off.

She also cut funding for senior citizen centers because a council member didn't thank her in a P.R. release.

There is just not enough bad stuff that can happen to Christine Quinn.

That the current council speak and council has brought the Vallone Scholarship back is very, very good news for CUNY students.

It's also very, very good news that Christine Quinn got hammered in the 2013 election and is no longer in power.

Cutting the Vallone Scholarship to retaliate against Peter Vallone Jr. was a shitty thing to do and something I will never forget or let Quinn live down so long as I can type.

Making SUNY And CUNY Tuition Free

From State of Politics:

Assemblyman James Skoufis is sponsoring legislation to give students free tuition to SUNY and CUNY schools if they agree to certain requirements. Participants would have to do 250 hours of community service each year, and then after graduation they’d need to stay in the state for at least five years. The goal is to help make college more affordable and assist non-profits around the state.

Pell grants and TAP do not come close to covering tuition, room and board at SUNY anymore.

Pell Grants and TAP still do cover CUNY costs if a student is eligible for them.

Still, I have seen way too many students have to take out $5000+ a year in loans lately to go to a SUNY school.

It would be great if there was some kind of program that gave students the opportunity to attend a SUNY school without having to go $20,000+ into debt to do it.

I have my doubts that Sheriff Andy Como would want this to happen - he likes to pass on the costs of tax cuts for rich people to working class and middle class college kids and their families.

But good to see this legislation introduced.

Here's A Shael Polakow-Suransky Proposal I Can Agree With

Wow - sometimes Shael says stuff that makes sense:

A top city education official on Thursday suggested a relatively inexpensive way to boost the number of high school students who go to college – pay their application fee.

Chief Academic Officer Shael Polakow-Suransky said the department is considering paying the $65 application fee for high school students applying to the City University of New York, which he said would cost the city about $500,000 annually.
...
CUNY currently gives schools “a very limited quantity” of waivers to distribute to their neediest students, but doesn’t accept waivers from other groups, such as the College Board, according to CUNY application forms. The department’s plan would pay the fees of some 6,600 students annually with “an economic need” who are not currently covered by the waivers, according to a department spokesman.

Polakow-Suransky said that every year some students who don’t get waivers balk at the fee and decide either not to apply or to wait until a time when they can afford it – which may never arrive.

He added that the plan is still in the works, but that CUNY has expressed interest.

While they're at it, provide two additional fee waivers to SUNY schools for all state students.

Governor Cuomo can hit up his hedge fundie buddies for the dough or better yet, stop paying Hollywood to make movies here that they can't make anywhere else anyway.

De Blasio Attacks CUNY Over Petraeus Boondoggle

As we learned earlier in the week, CUNY hired war criminal, er, former general and CIA director David Petraeus to teach 3 hours a week for $150,000 a year.

Considering how CUNY keeps raising tuition and fees on students, the hiring of Petreaus to essentially do nothing (the "class" will be one of those graduate seminars) seemed to be another example of how the gravy train never ends for the members of the oligarchy and their functionaries.

Public Advocate and mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio found the hiring of Petraeus outrageous as well:

In a letter to CUNY’s Interim Chancellor Bill Kelly, Mr. de Blasio, whose mayoral bid has been endorsed by the CUNY faculty’s union, called for Mr. Petraeus’s contract to be replaced with one offering a more modest salary, comparable to other teachers.

“This is symptomatic of what’s gone wrong in higher education. The focus on grabbing headlines and ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ is sending education costs higher and higher, and putting college out of reach for working and middle class families,” Mr. de Blasio fumed in a statement. “CUNY is the gateway to the middle class. Its full resources—both public funding and its private fundraising—should focus on preserving that essential mission.”

Michael Arena, CUNY’s director for communications and marketing,  did not immediately return a request for comment, but in the past has pointed out that Mr. Petraeus’s salary is funded by private sources, not tax dollars.

Mr. de Blasio, however, was undeterred by this point.

“While I understand Gen. Petraeus’ salary comes from private fundraising and not taxpayers, the decision still raises serious questions about whether this represents the best use of these resources,” he writes in the letter. “Public universities should never put headlines ahead of affordable education.”

I love the excuse that there's nothing to see here because the Petraeus money is funded by "private sources."

Hey, if private sources want to give CUNY $150,000, that's great - but they don't have to spend it on the salary of one retired war criminal who's going to "teach" three hours a week.

I realize that of course this money is being given to CUNY just so that it can go to Petraeus.

God forbid "private sources" should give this money to CUNY to hire a full-time professor or two.

CUNY Pays David Petraeus $150,000 A Year To Teach One Course

Many CUNY adjuncts are paid less than $3,000 a course.

Retired General David Petraeus will make $2,250 an hour to teach one course.

So glad to see those CUNY fee and tuition hikes going for really important things.

Petraeus, btw, didn't think CUNY was "prestigious" enough for him and had to be persuaded by outgoing CUNY Chancellor Matthew Goldstein to take the gig.

Hey, Dave, CUNY not prestigious enough for you?

Great, take your lying-ass act elsewhere.

I'm sure Harvard would like to have you.

Harvard's loss would be CUNY's gain.

Baruch Shuts Down Access To CUNY Board Of Trustees Meeting

So much for democracy or public accountability:

Baruch College is postponing a number of afternoon classes tomorrow, ahead of a meeting of the City University of New York's board of trustees.

School officials say all classes in the Newman Vertical Campus that begin after 3:00 p.m. are being rescheduled to Friday.

Friday's classes will be rescheduled to a later date.

School officials say the move is being made to ensure the safety of students, faculty and staff, days after a protest over proposed tuition hikes during a prior board of trustees meeting led to more than a dozen arrests.

Student access will be limited to those completing a class already in progress, and people with an urgent need to be in the building.

In a statement, the school's president says Baruch is determined to avoid any repetition of last week's events.

How dare CUNY students protest the oligarchical order, tuition increases, aid decreases and overall income inequality that is exacerbated by some of the very people at the CUNY Board of Trustees meeting.

You'll take your austerity measures AND LIKE IT, BITCHES!

Occupy.

Protests Come To CUNY

It's good to see students at CUNY beginning to rise up against their corporate overlords:

A daylong rally by City University of New York students against a planned tuition increase turned turbulent Monday evening when marchers ignored police requests to clear the lobby of a building where the university’s trustees were meeting and 15 people were arrested.

The students were pushed to the ground and taken away in handcuffs from the lobby of Baruch College, in Manhattan, while protesting a planned tuition increase for the 2012-13 academic year, on which the trustees are to vote next Monday.

Carlos Pazmino, 21, a City College student who helped organize the protest, said that after students began opening lobby doors to the building where the CUNY trustees were holding a public hearing on the 14th floor, CUNY public safety officers surrounded the entrances and pushed back, using their batons. He said that when students formed a line to push past, the officers began hitting the students with the batons.

“I saw two people knocked down by cops,” Mr. Pazmino said. “They were arrested, and one guy’s head was bleeding.”

During the fighting, students on higher floors dropped books down on the police, and captured the scuffle on video. A crowd of 200 to 300 protesters outside beat on the lobby’s windows, also shouting, “Shame.”

...

The protest began with a handful of organizers who marched through the cafeteria at City College at lunchtime. The group is demanding the repeal of the tuition increase approved in the summer by the city and the state: $300 a year for five years.

Later in the afternoon, the protest moved to Madison Square Park, where CUNY students from other colleges had agreed to meet. The growing crowd then marched on to Baruch College, at Lexington Avenue and 24th Street.

At Baruch, the campus police restricted access to the hearing to those who had registered, and set up barricades around the building, the William and Anita Newman Vertical Campus Conference Center, in whose lobby the confrontation occurred. At one point, the police told those who had pushed into the lobby, and refused to leave, that they would be arrested for trespassing. The students then sat down, and were pushed to a wall by the campus police.

“We have made it clear to the university that violent response to students who are protesting nonviolently is not acceptable,” said Barbara Bowen, the president of the faculty union, the CUNY Professional Staff Congress, who was in the meeting while the students were being arrested.

At the afternoon protest at Madison Square Park, protesters chanted, “Banks got bailed out, students got sold out.”

A small group of New York University and New School students joined the rally to support CUNY students, apparently part of an unrelated campaign by Occupy Wall Street organizers called Occupy Student Debt. Andrew Ross, an N.Y.U. professor affiliated with that group, said it was aiming to get one million students to pledge that they would not pay back their loans.

But Denise Romero, 19, a junior at Baruch and one of the organizers of Monday’s protest, insisted that the CUNY protest was independent of Occupy Wall Street. “We support them and they support us, but we are not affiliated,” she said.

She added that CUNY students were protesting not only tuition increases but also the university’s push for a public-private partnership. CUNY received $1.4 billion in private philanthropy this year, according to a university spokesman.

“We want more student representation,” said Ms. Romero, who had registered to speak at the hearing Monday.

Cuomo and Bloomberg think they can push sharp increases in fees and tuition and sharp decreases in financial aid onto SUNY and CUNY students and they will meekly take it.

So far, students and their families mostly have.

But we're starting to see some action on that front and occupying every one of these meetings where the political shills do their dirty work for their corporate masters is an important first step.

Publicly connecting Cuomo and Bloomberg to these tuition and fee increases and aid decreases is the next one.

Tax cuts for millionaire's, tuition increases for everybody else...

POSTSCRIPT: A group calling itself SAVE OUR SUNY was joined by members of Occupy Albany to protest budget cuts and tuition hikes at SUNY up in Albany.

It's good to see the ball rolling on this.

Harlem Children's Zone-Berkeley College Update

In response to this post here, Marty Lipp, the Communications Director at the Harlem Children's Zone says HCZ has no "business relationship" with Berkeley College or any other for-profit college.

Lipp says high school juniors and seniors at the HCZ programs are given a menu of colleges to apply to and Berkeley College just happens to be one of the choices on that menu. The menu also contains CUNY and SUNY schools as well as non-profit colleges and universities like Columbia and NYU.

He also says students are directed to apply to the SEEK program at CUNY schools, the EOP program at SUNY schools and the HEOP program at non-profit institutions if students fit the academic and financial criteria.

Lipp says the majority of HCZ students attend CUNY schools, though there are some at SUNY colleges and universities, a few at non-profit institutions, and a few at Berkeley College.

He says the students at Berkeley College are "doing well." When I asked what "doing well" meant, he said the contact that students at Berkeley have had with staff at HCZ has not raised any "red flags" that there are problems.

I am heartened to hear Mr. Lipp say that Harlem Children's Zone has no "business arrangement" with Berkeley College.

I am also heartened to hear that the staff at the HCZ counsel students to apply to CUNY, SUNY and non-profit schools and suggest the specialized SEEK, EOP, and HEOP programs when applicable.

And yet, something troubles me about the presence of Berkeley College on the menu of school choices made known to students.

Berkeley College is a non-profit institution that charges a little less than $30,000 a year for classes in a Bachelor's Degree program. So a Bachelor's Degree from Berkeley College will cost just under $120,000.

Now $120,000 is a lot of money for a college degree from even a reputable school, but from a proprietary school like Berkeley College, it is ridiculously overpriced. And while Berkeley College does not have notoriety of Interboro, Katherine Gibbs, or other scam schools, current and former students do not rank the school very high in their estimation and overwhelmingly say they would not attend there again if they could do their schooling all over (see here and here for some student reviews of the school.)

Berkeley offers nothing that the much cheaper and more reputable CUNY and SUNY 2-year and 4-year programs offer, so I don't understand why the Harlem Children's Zone has Berkeley College on it's list of schools for students to apply to when they're high school seniors.

If the goal of the Harlem Children's Zone is to, as they say on the website, use their "'whatever it takes' attitude when it comes to helping children to succeed," and "evaluate and track the results of their work" in order "to take corrective actions if they were not," they might want to track the outcomes from the students who attend Berkeley College or any other for-profit post-secondary school that they offer as options on their college lists.

What are the graduation rates of students who attend those schools? What is the debt level? Do they work in their chosen fields when they graduate and if so, for how long? More importantly, could they have worked in those chosen fields without the dubious credential they paid either $60,000 or $120,000 to receive? And finally, do the students who graduate from these institutions make a livable wage that enables them to pay off the loans they had to take out in order to attend these for-profits.

The reality is that the typical student who attends the Harlem Children's Zone programs would go to CUNY for free + receive money for books and expenses from the federal Pell Grant program, the state TAP program, and perhaps even the SEEK or College Discovery program. That same student would perhaps have to take out a $5,000 loan a year to attend a SUNY school where tuition, room, and board is about $17,000 (Pell, TAP, and EOP grants usually cover the rest.) Non-profit institutions like NYU and Columbia can be much more expensive, but if the student is academically eligible for the HEOP program, they can go for a fraction of the cost of the tuition and receive a very reputable education and valuable credential (and some schools cover almost all of the cost for HEOP students - I have had half dozen students attend Syracuse University in the HEOP program for as little as $2,000 a year after receiving federal, state and campus-based aid.)

The reality for students who attend Berkeley College at about $30,000 a year is $15,000-$20,000 a year in loans even after they receive the Pell grant, TAP, and the campus-based aid Berkeley College offers to financially-qualified students.

A low income student who receives a Bachelor's Degree from a 4-year CUNY will complete her/his schooling with little-to-no student loan debt.

A low income student who graduates from a SUNY 4-year school will be carrying some loan debt, but it will be mitigated by the value of the diploma (many of the 4-year SUNY schools are quite good and some, like Binghamton and Stony Brook, are world class.) If the student was part of the EOP program, the loan debt will be pretty small, relative to what colleges cost these days (perhaps about $20,000 in loan debt for all four years.)

But a low income student who graduates from Berkeley College will graduate with $60,000-$80,000 of loan debt.

That's an awfully big debt to start out your adult life with, but especially so if you took it on getting a degree from a school like Berkeley College.

So just checking in with former HCZ students now attending Berkeley College to see if there are any "red flags" isn't doing enough for them.

I meet with every senior I teach in the fall semester to talk about their college plans, their financial situations, etc., and when I saw that every student I had in my class who was also in the Harlem Children's Zone had Berkeley College on their lists of colleges to apply to, I grew concerned. When I called one of the sites back in the fall, I was told by one of the coordinators that HCZ had a "business arrangement" with Berkeley College, which is why students were given that college to put on their list of prospective schools. I asked for more information about this arrangement and was told I would hear back from somebody about this, but never did. I called again last week about this concern, again was told I would hear back from somebody at HCZ, but never did.

It wasn't until I blogged about my concerns that suddenly the HCZ was concerned about my concerns. Mr. Lipp told me that the person I talked to earlier who noted a business arrangement between HCZ and Berkeley was "not authorized to speak for the organization" and was uninformed about the subject.

Perhaps that is so. But when I spoke to another site coordinator this week, I was told that a group from Harlem Children's Zone including this person had just toured Berkeley College. So while I will take Mr. Lipp at his word that Harlem Children's Zone does not have a business arrangement with or receive any money from Berkeley College, I would also note that they're not exactly warning kids about the dangers of the for-profit schools when the staff is also getting a tour of the facilities there.

I will assume nothing nefarious goes on here, that the Harlem Children's Zone folks do not see proprietary schools with the same skeptical eyes that I do. Having heard from too many students who had been suckered in by the sales pitches at Berkeley College, Art Institute, Laboratory Institute of Merchandising and elsewhere who were left with somewhere between $30,000 and $80,000 dollars in debt and either useless credentials or college credits that wouldn't transfer to any reputable school, I believe students need to be made aware of the dangers and track records of these schools.

This doesn't mean that CUNY, SUNY and non-profit institutions do not have their problems, only that they are nowhere near as pronounced and troubling as the ones I see at the for-profits schools.