Budget Cuts *****************************************************
by Mariel**********************

These tough economic times are bringing us students government cuts which would make attending college that much harder. Governor Paterson is proposing an 11 percent cut in community college base aid, on top of the 68 million dollar cut already made to CUNY's budget. He is also asking for a tuition hike. It would be 600 dollars a year for senior colleges and 400 dollars a year for junior colleges (such as Kingsborough). Most of the money would go toward covering the state's budget gap, so we would not be seeing much of it.

Mayor Bloomberg is asking for the CUNY budget to be cut as well, by five million dollars this year, and 9 million by next year.
Officials may tell you that the 600 dollar hike at senior colleges would be easily covered by the 600 dollar max cap increase in TAP (our state's Tuition Assistance Program). However, TAP overall is being cut, so there is less to go around. It is almost unnecessary to add that many students who could use some tuition assistance are not qualified to receive any.

Other cuts in the state and city budget would affect health care and workers in many state and city funded jobs.

On Thursday, March 5, a coalition of unions rallied on the steps of City Hall in protest. There were countless groups at the rally, but the biggest sponsors were 1199/SEIU (the health care workers union), the UFT (United Federation of Teachers, which includes CUNY professors), and DC 37 (the municipal workers union). Official SEIU lit called it "The Fair Share Rally".

I attended a feeder march at the Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC). CUNY students and staff met in front of the school on Chambers Street an hour before the main rally, and then marched to City Hall.

The turnout for this CUNY rally was much higher than I had expected. I do not mean to damn with faint praise, but it has been my experience that students on CUNY campuses tend to be apathetic. They have to commute to class and back every day, which puts a serious damper on enthusiasm for student clubs or causes. Also, a great number of students work or otherwise have lives apart from school.  Finally, some are just bratty jerks that want as little to do with school as possible.

With this in mind, I had expected perhaps 30 people to show, but actual turnout was easily three times that, with our numbers growing during the march along Chambers Street.

The bulk of the students were not from BMCC, but from Hunter College far uptown. The Hunter contingent had staged a walkout in protest of the cuts. The Hunter Student Union, which organized the walkout, reported that 300 students participated. Many of them went straight to the main rally, but about 50 joined us at BMCC.

Other schools representing include City College, Brooklyn College, York College, Lehman, LaGuardia, and also many grad students from the Graduate Center on 34th Street. I talked to at least one other person from Kingsborough, and at the City Hall rally I briefly spoke to the College of Staten Island Peace Club. BMCC itself reports that Baruch, Hostos, the Murphy Institute, and even a student from a private school in Pennsylvania (Muhlenberg College) showed.

Students were joined by the CUNY Professional Staff Congress, which faces layoffs if the cuts go through. As we marched along Chambers to Broadway, we attracted more students, and a great number of union members, and eventually took up both lanes of traffic and the sidewalk on either side of the street. The City Hall rally itself was immense.

By the time I left, at 5 PM, it was extending itself up to Leonard Street, eight blocks away from the main stage. Even the streets feeding into Broadway were packed with protesters carrying signs and handing out lit, three blocks away.

At a follow up meeting at BMCC, students voted to make March 25th a day of action for CUNY. They are asking students to spread awareness about the budget cuts and tuition hikes. On March 31, there will be a Wall Street student/labor protest against the budget cuts.