By MADI CEESAY
Owing to the shaky economy, New York State has cut at least $3 million from the City College of New York budget for this academic year and administrators fear more budget cuts if the economy worsens.
According to CCNY’s Vice president for finance Richard Metz, $ 83 million of CCNY’s $125 million annual budget comes from the state, about $ 31 million from student tuitions and the rest from rental and vending machine incomes.
In an email to senior college administrators in August, CUNY Chancellor Mathew Goldstein said CUNY budget cut would total $50.6 million.
But this figure raises questions. Currently, there are eleven senior colleges in CUNY and City College is one of the largest. So, if $50.6 million is divided evenly by eleven, each senior college should suffer a cut of $4.6 million, which is over a million and half dollars more than the figure that City College administrators seem to be willing to reveal.
In late October, Goldstein dispatched another email stating that CUNY was “closely monitoring its financial situation in response to still unfolding economic events affecting international, national, state and local markets.”
To allay fears and to show CUNY’s readiness to survive through the current recession, Goldstein said “since the first implementation of the CUNY Compact in 2006, the university has committed itself to a wide range of productivity and efficiency measures, including the careful use of reserves set aside in anticipation of potential fiscal difficulties. This judicious management has enabled us to minimize the effect of state and city budget reductions.”
City College administrators said the reduction has yet to have an impact on students.
“We have not yet placed any academic program aside,” Metz said.
Students, however, say they are nervous about the impact State budget reductions will have on them.
“It worries me a lot,” said Rebecca Affi, an Ad/PR major. “I get financial aid, so does this mean that my allowance will be reduced?”
The Financial Aid Office did not respond to requests for comment
“My fear is this cut will impact on our ability to provide services to students,” said a school executive who wished to remain anonymous.
A press release posted on the New York State Governor’s official Web site said tuition would increase by $300 in the spring. The release states that the “full annual $600 increase would become effective in the following academic year.”
A representative of the Undergraduate Student Government said they had not yet been informed by the Administration about the reduction.
“But, if it does happen,” he said “we will sit down with the Administration to discuss it.”
With so many physical projects underway on campus, there are concerns about how City College intends to make up for its cash shortage. School executives said one of the measures that City College and CUNY have taken to save money was to put into effect a “hiring pause.” This means that CUNY Senior colleges including City College will not be hiring new faculty members this academic year. However, hires that had been approved before the “pause” will be honored.
This fall Gov. David Paterson announced statewide educations cuts totaling nearly $1 billion.
0 responses so far ↓
There are no comments yet...Kick things off by filling out the form below.