MAKE CUNY FREE AGAIN

For too many New Yorkers, the cost of a college education is just too high.  When I taught as an adjunct professor at CUNY’s City College, I witnessed the struggles that most of my students faced: poverty, juggling multiple jobs, raising families, and navigating housing insecurity. 

I believe that the City University of New York should be free again. 

It is a matter of equity and justice - especially for majority communities of color like Corona, East Elmhurst, Jackson Heights, and Woodside. I am running to bring leadership on the most pressing social justice issues facing our community, like access to higher education, to the State Assembly. 

Tuition at all CUNY colleges was free for 129 years until the fiscal crisis of 1976. The federal government withheld federal financial aid until it eliminated open admission and free tuition. Not coincidentally, it was a time period coupled with greater enrollment of black and brown students. According to research, 1976 was the first year that the incoming class was majority students of color. Just four years after eliminating free tuition, first year black and Latino student enrollment plummeted. This is simply unjust.

College degrees are critically important for workers to obtain good-paying jobs. They are the minimum level of education required for many career paths. I believe that education is a human right and should not be accessible only to the wealthy or those who take on massive student debt.

I believe we must make CUNY tuition-free again. New York City is the richest city in the richest country in the world. The wealthy are now paying a lower percentage in taxes than ever before because of Trump’s massive giveaway to the rich. We should raise tax revenue on the top 1% and use it to invest in the next generation of New Yorkers by providing equal opportunity to higher education.