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Opinion

Reverse the Cuts: Investing in CUNY is the Best Way to Grow New York City's Economy


CUNY graduates (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)


There is perhaps no institution in our city that has done more to create economic opportunity for New Yorkers than the City University of New York (CUNY). For generations, CUNY has provided its students with the tools they need to build a brighter financial future for themselves and their families. Yet today, CUNY finds itself at a financial crossroads. Steep budget cuts threaten the programs that are most effective at helping students earn a degree.

To ensure that far more New Yorkers from low-income backgrounds can succeed in the city’s fast-changing economy, policymakers should prioritize fully funding CUNY.

The stakes for New York are clear. A 2023 report from the Center for An Urban Future found that over 60% of jobs posted in New York City in 2022 required a bachelor’s degree — with these jobs offering a median starting salary of $79,800, compared with a median salary of $42,900 for jobs that don’t. 

As industries with a large share of accessible jobs, such as retail and hospitality, struggle to recover from the pandemic, helping more New Yorkers obtain well-paying jobs will require new efforts to close the city’s alarming college attainment gaps. Just 25% of Hispanic New Yorkers, 30% of Black New Yorkers, and 49% of Asian New Yorkers hold a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared to 68% of white New Yorkers. 

Investing in CUNY isn’t just a win for students, it’s vital for the economic security of New York City and State. CUNY graduates earned $57 billion and paid an estimated $4.2 billion in New York State income taxes in 2019, according to an analysis by the office of New York City Comptroller Brad Lander. Nearly 80% of graduates stay in the city when they’re done with their studies, and CUNY has educated approximately 10% of the state’s private-sector workforce. 

Despite the essential role CUNY plays in creating economic opportunity, it faces a difficult financial picture. The end of federal pandemic aid, coupled with declining tuition revenue and city-imposed cuts, means that CUNY stands to see a net budget cut of $140.9 million in fiscal year 2024. This gap could widen even further if tuition revenue continues to decline.

Alarmingly, many of the programs jeopardized by these cuts are delivering phenomenal results. The Accelerated Study in Associate’s Programs (ASAP) initiative has become the most effective program in the nation for increasing community college graduation rates with intensive advisement, scholarships, and other supports that help students finish on-time. The Accelerate, Complete, and Engage (ACE) program has similarly boosted graduation rates by 40% at CUNY’s four-year colleges, although restricted funding has limited that program to serving just 3% of all eligible students.

Also at risk is CUNY Reconnect, which has helped more than 16,000 New Yorkers with some college credits but no degree to return to CUNY over the past year. These programs are boosting enrollment and increasing CUNY’s effectiveness, while serving as a lifeline to students from low-income, immigrant, and first-generation college families. 

New York’s elected leaders are nearly unanimous in expressing the desire to expand economic mobility, while ensuring New Yorkers are ready for the well-paying jobs the city’s economy is creating and making the state’s tax base more resilient. 

No institution is better positioned to deliver on those needs than CUNY. Now is the time to invest in CUNY’s effectiveness, not limit its potential.

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Jonathan Bowles is the Executive Director of the Center for an Urban Future (CUF). Eli Dvorkin is CUF’s Editorial and Policy Director. On Twitter @jbowlesnyc, @wetwax, & @nycfuture.

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Carrying Juneteenth Forward in New York City


City buildings lit up for Juneteenth (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


Juneteenth commemorates the day in 1865 when Black Americans who had been enslaved in Texas finally received word that President Abraham Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring them free two years earlier on January 1, 1863. 

It’s easy to imagine the hopes and dreams, long held within, that finally were released into the universe, and the disappointment that surely followed when Black Americans realized that freedom from slavery did not mean their rights as American citizens would be respected.

It would take another 100 years for Black Americans to have their civil and voting rights legally recognized and protected with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Yet still today, Black people and others, whom those expansive bodies of legislation were intended to protect, do not universally enjoy the freedoms the laws promised.

But why not? Because laws that outlaw discrimination do not automatically end bias, implicit or explicit. Attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors stemming from prejudice and stereotypes persist, and when they are held by those in power disparate treatment and outcomes also endure. For instance, systemic inequities persist in areas such as wages, hiring, and education funding to name a few.

Black people experience higher unemployment rates and lower wages across all educational attainment levels and age cohorts than white persons. Even as Black persons earn college and graduate degrees at significantly higher rates than in the Civil Rights Era, material gaps in employment and in wages remain. 

Disparities in education remain as well. On average, Black students of any income are more likely to be in a lower funded school district than even the poorest of white students. Furthermore, school districts with predominantly students of color, irrespective of income, receive $23 billion less in funding than predominantly white districts — approximately $2,200 less per student per year. And, even once attaining similar college degrees, Black students leave more debt-burdened than their white peers and enter a labor market where they are paid significantly less, preventing them from paying off their loans at the same rate. 

Last year, New Yorkers took the unprecedented step of embedding racial justice and equity in local government by voting overwhelmingly for city charter revisions that require the City of New York to continually work at and be held accountable for upholding and actualizing anti-racism and anti-bias as core government responsibilities and functions.  

Undoubtedly it’s an ambitious goal and, if history is our guide, it is a goal that is attainable only if we strive to change not only the law but the attitudes and beliefs, and the individual and collective consciousness of those persons now mandated to uphold it. 

This Thursday, in connection to that goal, the City Council is poised to introduce historic and unprecedented legislation that would require City employees to complete annually anti-racism and anti-bias training. It is, without question, as important as the charter revisions themselves.

Everyday every New Yorker is impacted by the decisions and work of public servants. Supporting them to be equipped and to act with a shared knowledge and common understanding of racism and bias will help them perform their duties without intentionally and unintentionally perpetuating discrimination and harm. 

The accompanying legislation that would require contracted human services providers to also complete anti-racism and anti-bias training is just as critical. This larger system has frequently upheld biased and false narratives about who is deserving and has too often made access to vital, quality services unnecessarily complicated and out of reach for people and communities of color, women, and persons who identify as LGBTQ+. Helping the human services and nonprofit workforce recognize and overcome biases is an imperative.

In addition, racist and biased narratives have also contributed to the devaluing of the human services workforce, which is comprised of 75% people of color and 55% women of color, and makes less than their counterparts in both government and the private sector. Our non-profit frontline and program staff — our youth counselors, day care support staff, case managers, meal deliverers, and others — all deserve fair compensation.

With mandated anti-racism and anti-bias training for City employees and contracted human services agencies, hopefully, New York City will be enlightened to also recognize the importance of ensuring this workforce, that is predominantly made up of people of color, is earning a living wage. With livable wages alongside mandated anti-racism and anti-bias training for City employees and many contractors, hopefully, we will be closer to the equity imagined by our recent charter revisions.

Juneteenth is a day to be celebrated because it embodies the hope of freedom from racism and bias for all. But 158 years later, we need more than hope. We need legislation that can and will help change hearts and minds. These bills, if passed, hold the potential and promise of doing just that for New York City, and even the nation.

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Jennifer Jones Austin is CEO of FPWA. City Council Members Amanda Farias and Nantasha Williams represent parts of the Bronx and Queens, respectively. On Twitter @JJAatFPWA, @CMAmandaFarias, & @CMNantashaW.

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New York City Tenants Can’t Afford Rent Hikes


Pushing for tenant protections (photo: Jeff Reed/City Council)


Over the past month, hundreds of tenants have rallied at hearings across the city to send a message: the rents are too high. 

The New York City Rent Guidelines Board, appointed by the Mayor, has sole discretion over how rents will change for 2.4 million rent-stabilized New York City tenants. The Board members’ vote this week risks pushing countless families into overcrowded shelters or the streets. 

The purpose of rent stabilization is to stabilize rents, which are already priced too high. The system was created in 1943 with the explicit aim of countering inflation – a problem we’re all too familiar with 80 years later. The Rent Guidelines Board (RGB) must fulfill its mandate and stand against rent hikes that are driving Black, brown, and low-income families out of the city, to settle for worse housing conditions, or to enter the growing ranks of the city’s homeless population.

At the first RGB hearing at Hostos Community College in the Bronx, we presented testimony that made clear how high the stakes are and how personal.

I, City Council Member Stevens, have a 23-year-old daughter who lives in rent-stabilized housing, and a rent hike would be devastating for her. 

I, Mercedes, started organizing with CASA when my landlord, Emerald Equities, applied to take away rent-stabilization in the building, and was mobilized by the pain and frustration of demanding basic repairs—around heating, leaks, bedbugs, and more—and not having them addressed.  

Our stories are not unique, and we’re tired of the political theater that demands that we relive our trauma hearing after hearing, year after year. Because these are the facts: the average family in a rent stabilized apartment pays over 36% of its income in rent, and more than a third hand most of their income over to their landlord every month. 

While rents have been rising, real wages have fallen, forcing families to choose — pay the rent or pay for food or other needs. The risk of displacement is also up. Fifteen percent of tenants say their landlord has threatened to evict them – the highest rate in eleven years. 

Every Rent Guidelines Board member is aware of these facts. We know, because they came directly out of the reports prepared for them by the RGB staff to inform their vote. But the personal and emotional toll on families and children from this level of housing insecurity can’t be captured solely by statistics. We are real people, with real families, and real children.

I, Council Member Stevens, ran for City Council because of my daughter and countless other youth facing housing insecurity. 

Landlords claim they are facing hardship, but among their other advantages, landlords received massive government payments to make up for missed rents from the covid pandemic. The New York City housing market has rebounded and is as profitable as ever – and we promise you, no landlord is going to go broke or become homeless if you don’t raise the rents. 

But tenants could be forced out on the streets. Our lives are the products of our housing situations. When we can’t afford the rent, when disrepair makes our homes uninhabitable, and when we live in fear of eviction, it’s draining. It affects our ability to be caretakers to parents and children, it affects the ability to hold down stable work, it affects our personal health. 

So we turn to organizing and turn our pain into protest and power. Because we know the people closest to the problems are closest to the solutions. We’re asking the Board to listen to our concerns and not raise our rents. 

The New York City rent regulation system was established to help counter inflation and ensure fair rents for New Yorkers. The Rent Guidelines Board has the power to address the affordability crisis strangling the city – or its members can make it much worse. 

We must provide security to our community members. We call on the RGB to uphold its responsibility to protect tenants. Hold true to your mandate and vote against rent hikes that are making the city unlivable. The future of millions of New Yorkers depends on it.

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New York City Council Member Althea Stevens represents parts of the Bronx. Mercedes Escoto is a CASA Leader. On Twitter @althea4theBX & @CASA_NYC.

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