Gov. Cuomo: Sign the College MOE Bill

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Sign the College MOE Bill

New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo

By signing this bill to fund CUNY and SUNY adequately Gov. Cuomo can ensure that New York's public colleges and universities—and our public teaching hospitals—will have the resources they need. Reliable state investment will help more students to graduate on time. It will boost the economy, strengthen the state and local tax base, modernize our workforce, and grow New York’s middle class.

Sponsored by

MOE$forSUNY&CUNY

New York, NY

To: New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo
From: [Your Name]

Dear Governor Cuomo,

We, the undersigned students and others with a stake in the quality of public higher education in New York State, strongly urge you to sign the Maintenance of Effort (MOE) bill (S.1596-A/A.934-A), passed by the NY Assembly and Senate with overwhelming bipartisan support. The MOE bill will protect educational quality at CUNY and SUNY, which together serve nearly 2 million mostly low- and middle-income people, including hundreds of thousands of immigrants, students of color and first-generation students. NY’s great public university systems need MOE funding to cover predictable, mandatory cost increases for rent, utilities, supplies and equipment, and personnel. Without a strong MOE, full-time faculty-to-student ratios will remain inadequate, and counseling, advisement and other critical student support services will suffer—and so will many students. With the Excelsior Scholarship drawing in more students and requiring that they graduate on time, our institutions will need additional funding to manage the growing number of students. As it is, many students can’t register for the courses they need to graduate.

Since 2011, the State has underfunded mandatory costs at CUNY and SUNY, slowly starving the institutions and pushing increased costs onto the backs of students and their families—tuition has jumped 35% in that time. SUNY and CUNY will scramble to cover state budget shortfalls from years of stagnant support amid rising costs. The state must fulfill its obligation and support our students and public higher education systems; we urge you to sign the Maintenance of Effort bill today.