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Don’t cut CUNY funds: LaGuardia president

For low-income New Yorkers, it is a slippery and difficult climb up the career ladder to a middle-class job. Mayor Michael Bloomberg has made it harder by removing the bottom rungs.

He proposes slashing the City University of New York's six community college budgets by $26 million. If the City Council supports the cut, the city will see severely reduced educational access at the places that help low-income and working class New Yorkers get ahead. This reduction comes during an economic recession, the worst possible time.

The deteriorating national and state economies will not impact everyone equally. As the gap between rich and poor in our city and the country widens, New York must make sure that the support needed to help people get and keep family-supporting jobs is strengthened. The only form of “recession insurance” proven to produce results is education or training beyond high school. As LaGuardia Community College's president, I see education's power to open doors to the middle class for the over 50,000 people who study here each year.

Two LaGuardia students exemplify upwardly striving New Yorkers. After Marcy returned from military service, where she drove 18-wheelers between Afghanistan and Iraq, she enrolled in an occupational therapy program. She works full time at John F. Kennedy International Airport at night and is a full-time student during the day. When she graduates this summer, Marcy will enter a profession that will bring in a starting salary of at least $35,000 a year with benefits.

A former student, Umberto did not speak English when he started at LaGuardia as a cleaner. Umberto persisted in learning English, obtaining an associate's and then a bachelor's in computer programming and going on to get his master's in public administration.

Marcy and Umberto are not extraordinary. Thousands of New Yorkers are leveraging low-cost public education to enter middle-class professions and fill needed jobs in our local economy. Community college students dream of using education to move into the middle class. When students achieve their goals, the investment return of city dollars is impressive: family income goes up 17 percent upon graduation for LaGuardia students. They do not need or want hand-outs, but want a hand to help them climb the ladder.

Bloomberg's proposed $27 million community college cutbacks are part of a planned reduction of $48 million in city funding for CUNY. They come when the demand for an affordable, high-quality community college education is at a 30-year high. Enrollments are booming with almost 80,000 degree credit students and another 118,000 students in annual workforce development education and training. The cuts will reduce classes, curtail library hours, limit tutors and close computer labs.

I implore the mayor and City Council to not dismantle the ladder to economic progress for our lowest-income New Yorkers. Restore community college funding.

Gail Mellow

President, LaGuardia Community College