JAMESTOWN – Jamestown Community College President Greg DeCinque is joining other community college presidents from across the state in asking for more funding for the upcoming fiscal year.
DeCinque – along with his peers across the SUNY Community College system – is asking state legislators to amend the 2013-14 budget proposed by Governor Andrew Cuomo last month, which, as it stands, would keep state aid to community colleges flat. In addition, JCC administrators and students will also be communicating with members of the state’s Assembly and Senate to share the message.
In a media release sent out on Wednesday, Decinque said base state aid is currently $2,272 per full-time equivalent (FTE) student, and Governor Cuomo has proposed not increasing it for 2013-14. He says SUNY’s community colleges are asking the state legislature for an increase of $260 per FTE student in the final state budget, for a total of $2,532.
DeCinque added that when set up, Community Colleges in New York were designed to get one third of their funding from the state, one third from student tuition, and one third from local sources. He says currently, state aid is far below that one-third mark.
DeCinque concluded his remarks by saying that inadequate funding from the state will place a disproportionate burden on the students themselves at a time when we should be trying to remove barriers to higher education rather than create them.
Leave a Reply