Dear Commons Community,

As a follow-up to Governor Andrew Cuomo’s state of the state address on Wednesday, Assembly Leader Sheldon Silver gave a brief response. Manfred Philipp, University Faculty Senate, posted yesterday on the UFS LISTSERV (see below) that Silver has specifically mentioned proposing an increase in state aid for community colleges.  This would surely help CUNY and SUNY.

Tony

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Text of Email Message from Manfred Philipp

The Governor’s State of the State speech yesterday was well-reported, but Sheldon Silver’s State of the State Presentation, given the same day, was perhaps eclipsed.  What NYS Assembly Speaker Silver said is perhaps important for CUNYs’ community colleges:

“Education, it is said, is the great equalizer and for this reason the Assembly Majority has been a longtime champion of educational investment. To strengthen the third rung of the ladder, we are proposing to increase the state’s support for our community colleges.

With high unemployment and widespread under employment, more and more of our citizens are looking to community colleges for a new path to a better life. By law, this state is obligated to fund up to 40-percent of the operational budgets of our community colleges, but only once in four decades has the state fully met that obligation. Now, when these learning centers are so important to our economy, to our companies and to our workers, we must increase our investment in them.”