APPLE SEEDS HOLDS WINTER CONCERT
Apple Seeds, an indoor children’s playground and development center, is hosting a winter concert on Sunday, Dec. 16, at Stage 72. According to the company, the show—which it says will be “highly interactive” with dance- and sing-alongs—will feature original music by Mr. Ray, popular kids’ songs, top 40 hits and Christmas classics. The event promotes Apple Seeds’ “Songs for Seeds” program, a group music class for children up to 5 years old that introduces them to music basics by focusing on different international music cultures. The show begins at 11 a.m. at 158 West 72nd St., and tickets can be purchased online at www.stage72.com.

LAPPIN PROPOSES GRADES FOR CITY BUSES
City Council Member Jessica Lappin introduced a resolution to the Council on Monday that calls for a letter-grading system for buses. Like restaurant grading, Lappin’s measure would rate individual bus lines from A (excellent) to F (terrible) based on criteria like cleanliness, timeliness and seat availability. The idea for bus ratings was inspired by Susan Giles, an Upper East Side resident who suggested it to Lappin over the summer.

“Grading buses is an easy way to let commuters know what they’re getting, and let the MTA know where they need to improve,” Lappin said in a statement. “For the past two years, I’ve issued a report card on Select Bus Service, and it’s been a great transparency tool. Why not extend it to all bus lines?”

Earlier this year, Lappin issued a report card that gave Select Bus Service (SBS) a “B” for its quality of service. MTA itself conducts customer satisfaction surveys for its overall service on buses, but does not rate individual bus lines.

STRINGER SEEKS NEW BOARD MEMBERS
Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer is selecting next year’s class of Community Board members. Manhattan is divided geographically into 12 communities, each of which has its own board of up to 50 unpaid local members appointed by Stringer. The boards have no administrative rights, but present requests to the city’s administration that address neighborhood quality of life, business and residential issues. Stringer is holding information sessions about the application process on Thursday, Dec. 13, and Tuesday, Jan. 8, in the Municipal Building at 1 Centre St., and on the Upper West Side on Tuesday, Dec. 18, at 163 W. 125th St. All sessions are from 6:30 to 8 p.m. RSVP to cbinfo@manhattanbp.org.

In the Rockaways, students from several CUNY campuses wearing special “CUNY Works” T-shirts cleared wreckage, did demolition and spread the word about relief efforts to businesses in part of Council Member James Sanders Jr.’s district. The team included students from the Ernesto Malave Leadership Academy and the CUNY Coalition for Students with Disabilities. They traveled from Manhattan in a double-decker tour bus arranged by City Council Speaker Christine Quinn.

High-achieving students are continuing to enroll in record levels at the City University of New York, while more students are also on track to complete their degrees, according to a preliminary Fall 2012 enrollment report.

The university continues to see record enrollment of students with high school averages over 85 this fall, with a 5 percent increase in that number over last year. CUNY’s highly competitive Macaulay Honors College experienced more than a 35 percent increase in the number of applicants for this year, to a record 5,537 for 400 places.

SAT scores of students entering Macaulay are above 1400, with a mean average grade-point average in excess of 93 percent—a student academic profile typical of Ivy League and other highly competitive institutions. In addition, at CUNY’s five most competitive senior colleges—Baruch, Brooklyn, City, Hunter and Queens—almost 27 percent of freshmen entering this fall had SAT scores above 1200.

Strengthened academic standards, stabilized University finances and CUNY’s renewed reputation for both academic quality and great value in a challenging economy fuel the strong demand for a CUNY education.

Overall, the number of students at CUNY colleges increased by close to 2,000. Chancellor Matthew Goldstein told the Board of Trustees on Sept. 24 that higher retention rates were “very much attributable to the focus and quality of the students” now applying to and entering CUNY’s most competitive colleges.

A total of 269,186 students are filling CUNY classrooms in Fall 2012, continuing 12 years of enrollment increases, according to preliminary university figures. Another 2,800 students were directed to pre-degree immersion programs to bring their skills up to college level. They included more than 740 in CUNY Start, an academic skills immersion program, and another 2,100 in the CUNY Language Immersion Program.

Enrollment at CUNY’s four-year baccalaureate colleges is slightly up this fall, as is undergraduate enrollment overall. A small dip in graduate-student enrollment is occurring in teacher-education programs amid a drop-off in teacher hiring.

The City University of New York is the nation’s leading urban public university. Founded in New York City in 1847 as the Free Academy, the University has 24 institutions: 11 senior colleges, seven community colleges, the William E. Macaulay Honors College at CUNY, the Graduate School and University Center, the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, the CUNY School of Law, the CUNY School of Professional Studies and the CUNY School of Public Health. The University serves over 269,000 degree credit students and 269,808 adult, continuing and professional education students. College Now, the University’s academic enrichment program, is offered at CUNY campuses and more than 300 high schools throughout the five boroughs of New York City. The university offers online baccalaureate degrees through the School of Professional Studies and an individualized baccalaureate through the CUNY baccalaureate degree. More than 1 million visitors and 2 million page views are served each month by www.cuny.edu, the university’s website.

Bruce Jay Friedman, author most recently of the memoir Lucky Bruce, will sit on the memoir and biography panel at the conference. We talked to the Upper West Sider about his long and thriving career as a novelist, playwright, screenwriter (hits include Splash and the story for The Heartbreak Kid), short story author and, now, memoirist.

You’ve been called the “hottest writer of the year” at various points in your career—how has that affected you?
I had a movie that was a very big movie, Stir Crazy [in 1980]. And this entertainment attorney, a young kid, said, “Don’t you realize you’re the hottest writer in Hollywood?” I was so deeply offended—that was exactly what I didn’t want to be. So I moved back to the East Coast, shut off the phone and started to write a novel, which was what I felt I should be doing.

But you also got that mantle for writing the play Scuba Duba in 1968.
Being the so-called hottest playwright is not so bad. You do get better tables in restaurants. You get your—well, it’s more than 15 minutes, actually.

Did all the hype around your work ever make you feel pressure about your next projects?
No, I always had an appointment with that next thing to write. I’d finish a novel and think, why not try a play now? I’d always go back to the short story—that’s what I’m doing now—that was always my anchor.
I think you will hear that if you’ve written a novel, it doesn’t mean you can write a play; if you’re written a play, it doesn’t mean you can write short stories. I’ve never bought that. To me it’s storytelling, in one form or another. And I’ve gotten away with it so far.

With novels and memoirs, writers often write from their experiences. How do you navigate writing about real people?
The person you’re worried about slandering is the last person to recognize himself in a book. However, occasionally, as happened to me with my first novel Stern, I was terribly concerned about my boss. I needed the job and I had him as a character, not the most lovable character. I disguised him in a million different ways, but still, he was a very smart guy. But he never said a word. The book was published and he gave me a raise.
Then I got in the elevator and a woman I’ve never heard of before gets on. She starts screaming “Why? How could you do that to me?” I’d never met the woman, I knew nothing about her. She identified closely with that character and you could not dissuade her.

How did you approach writing your memoir?
The struggle for me was trying to find the right voice—not so much what the book was, but what voice. I’ve got at least half a dozen different voices. Finally I decided to just be me, and then the book was relatively easy [to write].

There is so much pressure on writers now to self-promote their work and find commercial success—how can young writers deal with that?
To the extent that it’s possible, and that I have any advice at all, is to just really get rid of all that and write a wonderful story and let the rest take care of itself. I’m sure Salinger wasn’t thinking of promotional opportunities when he wrote Catcher.

Allen Houston, executive editor of Manhattan Media, will be part of the editor’s panel at the conference. For a full lineup of writers and information on the Writers’ Conference, which runs June 6-9, visit hunter.cuny.edu/ce.

Encapsulating the Past: With officials looking on, including Rep. Carolyn Maloney, City Council Member Jessica Lappin and former Ambassador William vanden Heuvel, construction workers help place a stainless steel time capsule with memorabilia relating to President Franklin D. Roosevelt at Four Freedoms Park on Roosevelt Island.

Candidates for 4th Council District Emerge

While none have officially declared their candidacies or filed paperwork with the state, several people’s names have been circulating as potential candidates for Council Member Dan Garodnick’s 4th District seat. Garodnick has officially confirmed his run for comptroller, so his seat will be wide open. Community Board 6 Chair Mark Thompson has confirmed that he’ll be filing for a campaign committee shortly.

“I’m looking forward to running for office and representing the East Side,” said Thompson in a recent interview. “I’ve actually been working with the City Council for many years now, most recently as chair of the Community Board; I’ve worked very closely with the City Council and city agencies, getting things done.”

Thompson works for government and community relations firm Capalino + Company and holds a master’s degree in city and regional planning from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. He said he plans to focus on quality-of-life issues as well as small business, transportation, developing the waterfront and senior and education issues in his campaign.

Another name that has been floated in political circles is that of Brice Peyre, currently deputy chief of staff and press secretary for Rep. Carolyn Maloney. When asked if he was considering a run, Peyre said in an email that the prospect was interesting and mentioned his years of government service and local residency.

“I have been encouraged to run by many community leaders who think that I could make a meaningful contribution to public service in a different capacity, and that my experience and abilities give me an instinctive feel for the issues that most concern District 4 residents,” Peyre wrote. He would only say that he is “considering all [his] options carefully”; of course, there’s still ample time to make those kinds of decisions and for other candidates to emerge in what is shaping up to be a long race.

Local Democratic Leader Mulls Runs for City Council

David Menegon, president of the Lenox Hill Democratic Club, is considering a run for the Upper East Side’s 5th District City Council seat, Our Town has learned.

The bid for the council seat, currently held by Jessica Lappin, who is very likely running for Manhattan Borough President, has already attracted three declared candidates: NYU professor Hill Krishnan, attorney and activist Ben Kallos and Domenico Minerva, attorney and president of the Lexington Democratic Club.

While he hasn’t made any official moves to register a run for the seat, Menegon said that he’s talking with friends and potential supporters about a possible run.

“I’ve spoken to a couple of friends about this. I’m interested. I’ve lived here for almost 20 years,” Menegon said. “I haven’t filed any paperwork, I haven’t made a decision—it’s very preliminary.”

Menegon is an Army veteran who served for two years in Iraq and has worked in sales at the Xerox Corporation for the past 20 years. He said that his time overseas working on development and infrastructure would be useful working on Upper East Side issues like the Second Avenue Subway construction and the opposition to the East 92nd Street Marine Transfer Station.

“I think I have some skills to be a good advocate for people in the community,” Menegon said. “It’s a 50/50 thing right now.”

Republican Steps Up Against Maloney

This Sunday, local financial analyst Christopher Wight formally announced his congressional campaign, running as a Republican against Rep. Carolyn Maloney in the newly redrawn 12th District. Wight chose the site of the National Debt Clock in Times Square as the location for his press conference to declare his candidacy, using it as a jumping-off point to criticize Maloney’s fiscal record.

Wight, who has worked for Wall Street firms and has been endorsed by the Republican and Conservative parties and the Independence Party of New York, has emphasized his banking credentials and is already throwing jabs at Maloney for her voting record on fiscal issues.

“Our country has been on the path to bankruptcy and Carolyn Maloney has paved that path,” Wight said at the press conference. “When I look at Carolyn Maloney’s voting record, her priorities, I see a record that threatens the future my parents worked so hard for.”

Only time will tell if jabs will be enough to defeat a powerful incumbent. Maloney herself ousted a Republican incumbent when she first won national office representing the district in 1992 and has since won re-election nine times. Maloney defeated a Democratic challenger in 2010, Reshma Saujani, who went on to work for Public Advocate Bill DeBlasio and is now considering a run for that office.

‘War on Women’ Forum at CUNY

Local elected leaders and advocates are joining forces to hold a public forum to discuss feminism, the political attacks on women’s rights happening across the country and what citizens who are opposed to those campaigns can do to fight them. State Sen. Liz Krueger and the Center for the Study of Women and Society at the CUNY Graduate Center will host several speakers, including author of Full Frontal Feminism and founder of Feministing.com Jessica Valenti, vice president of The Women’s Media Center Jamia Wilson, professor at the CUNY Graduate Center political science department Joe Rollins and author and activist with Soapbox Inc. Amy Richards. The forum, entitled “The War on Women: An Evening of Basic Training,” will be held Tuesday, April 24, 6:30–8:30 p.m. at the CUNY Graduate Center’s Elebash Auditorium, 365 5th Ave. RSVP to spasquantonio@gmail.com or call 212-490-9535.

UES Walking Tours

In celebration of their 30th anniversary, the Friends of the Upper East Side Historic Districts will be hosting a series of walking tours through each of the six historic districts under its protection. The first walk will be Sunday, April 29 in the Henderson Place Historic District. The districts’ homes, built in 1881-82, were designed by the architectural firm Lamb & Rich in the Queen Anne style. The district became the center of German, Hungarian and Czech immigrant communities in the 19th and 20th centuries. The tour will be lead by Franny Eberhart, preservation committee chair, and Sarah O’Keefe, education director. Meet at 1 p.m. at the northwest corner of East End Avenue and East 86th Street. Tickets are $10 for members and $15 for non-members. Call 212-535-2526 or visit www.friends-ues.org/events.

By Sean Creamer

Knowledge of the art of business is a requirement for anyone who hopes to cover the fast-paced business world of New York. Beyond that, though, an understanding of the history and players who have made this city into what it was are also needed.

Greg David, a CUNY professor, was the editor of Crain’s New York Business for 25 years. He has used his experience as a business journalist to pen his recent book Modern New York: The Life and Economics of a City, a book for anyone interested in how the economic engine of the financial capital of the world works.

The author will discuss his book and the future of New York City April 9 at 7 p.m. at the Barnes and Noble on Broadway and 82nd Street.

West Side Spirit: What makes New York’s economy unique?

Greg David: Well, New York isn’t just any city, it is THE city. The story of New York is the story of how this city became the preeminent business and financial capital of America, if not the world. And it’s a fascinating story, because it’s about the triumph of Wall Street. It’s about the roles mayors have had in shaping this city for good and for ill. And it’s about all the efforts New York has made to diversify its economy. I think fundamentally, this book is about the intersection of business, the economy and politics.

Is the book written purely for those in the business arena?

The book is not just about business people, it’s about all kinds of New Yorkers. One of the most important reasons why New York is prosperous is because of immigrants. People say that Ed Koch’s housing plan was instrumental in saving the neighborhoods—it was a good plan, but it didn’t save the neighborhoods. The arrival of immigrants in rising numbers in the late 1970s and 1980s is what saved New York.

In the ’70s, New York City’s population decreased by almost 1 million people. We were on our way to becoming some super-sized Boston or maybe Detroit. Then immigrants moved into the worst neighborhoods, because that is where they could afford to live, and they revitalized them. Immigrants have fueled the growth of tourism; immigrants have fueled the growth of many industries. Immigrants are more entrepreneurial, they have played a crucial role in making the city more prosperous—if we are going to have a bright future, we are going to continue to need hundreds of thousands of immigrants to come to the city.

How do you feel gentrification has affected some neighborhoods in New York City?

What’s happening in Greenpoint and Williamsburg is the manifestation of the policies of the hero of the book, whose name is Dan Doctoroff. New York was straightjacketed for many years by the myth of manufacturing; that manufacturing would make a comeback and we needed to nurture it. Doctoroff broke that myth. When he tried to bring the Olympics to New York, he went looking for where he was going to put the stadiums and housing it required. He led the effort that rezoned
so much of the city and opened New York to development, where we can put the office buildings needed for the workers of the future and the residential units for the people we think are coming here.

Three times, New York has approached 3.8 million jobs, and each time we have fallen back. We fell back before Wall Street crashed. We had nowhere to put the jobs, so they went to the suburbs. Doctorff’s great legacy is that we have the ability to grow to 4 million jobs or more, because of rezoning.

What do you think led to the recent economic collapse?

As the book points out, the economy didn’t go under in 2008. It’s a great irony that New York was the epicenter of the financial crisis and was the city virtually least affected by it. New York’s Great Recession was 1969 to 1977. This was the mildest downturn of the modern era for the city.

How has New York managed to ride out the Great Recession?

The bailout of the banks meant that fewer people were fired than expected and salaries and bonuses stayed high. Tourism has become the city’s second most important industry and continued to be surprisingly strong during the recession. Also, New York is a very different place these days. There are only 70,000 manufacturing jobs, not the million there were after the end of World War II.

Do you think New York City might be losing its sway as the world’s financial leader?

I’ve been reading and reporting on stories that claim New York’s position as the financial capital of the world has been in danger since the 1980s. They were all wrong then, and I think they will be wrong again. Our problem is not competition from other financial centers. The future of New York, as I ask in the last chapter of my book, “Is the era of New York over?” depends on answering two questions.

The first one is whether Wall Street is going to permanently harnessed; if its profits will be down permanently, if its compensation will be cut back to the levels of 20 years ago. The second question to be answered—and will probably be answered in the 2013 mayoral campaign—is “What is the political direction of New York?” Ever since Ed Koch walked into City Hall on Jan. 1, 1978, New York has been governed by a philosophy in which business and the economy was at the top
of the agenda. That idea Koch brought and articulated during his time as mayor has continued unchallenged through Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg. Not a single candidate in the 2013 mayoral race shares the Koch/Giuliani/Bloomberg philosophy.

Matthew Goldstein.

By Rachel Stern

A decade ago, some might argue, the City University of New York (CUNY) appeared very different than it does today. There was no Macaulay Honors College, School of Public Health, School of Professional Studies or graduate journalism program. There were less full-time faculty members and lower academic standards at the four-year colleges.
The man credited with helping shift the system, spurring several educational programs and initiatives into action and fundraising over $4 billion, is Dr. Matthew Goldstein, CUNY’s chancellor since 1999.
“We’re all here to try to improve the lives of our students and give them options that they can exercise during and after their time studying here,” said Goldstein, the first CUNY graduate to become chancellor of the system.
Goldstein studied statistics and mathematics at City College, commuting from Sheepshead Bay and juggling part-time odd jobs. He received his bachelor’s degree in 1963, continuing on to receive a PhD in mathematical statistics from the University of Connecticut. He returned to CUNY in several positions, among them as a professor and then president of Baruch College and president of The Research Foundation.
He began his tenure as chancellor by working to raise the academic standards of CUNY’s 11 senior colleges, moving “remedial education” to the six community colleges, he said.
“It required raising our academic assessment test to make judgments about whether people are ready for baccalaureate work,” said Goldstein. “And if they were not ready, they would first have to study at a community college and do reasonably well before they could enter a senior college.”
Over breakfast with Mayor Michael Bloomberg a few years after his start, Goldstein brought up how he wanted to boost CUNY’s community college graduation rates, which are notoriously low, “without diluting the curriculum,” he said.
Bloomberg then funded the $20 million program Associated Study in Accelerated Programs (ASAP) at all CUNY’s community colleges. Launched in 2007 with small class sizes and required full-time study, ASAP helped 55 percent of its students receive their graduate degree in three years—three times the national urban community college three-year graduation rate of 16 percent.
Furthermore, it inspired the creation of The New School, according to Goldstein, CUNY’s latest community college slated to open this fall.
A firm believer in math and science education, Goldstein was also behind The Decade of Science, a plan stretching from 2005 to 2015 that is modernizing science facilities, bringing in more faculty, and has created the School of Public Health.
“I’m really trying to encourage students who have the aptitude and ability to make contributions that are not only important to themselves but to society,” he said.
As a public institution, Goldstein says CUNY still needs more funding to boost its diversity of programs and students. He stood behind the latest tuition increases—$300 per year under Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s tuition plan—calling them “modest” compared to other public universities.
“We’ve been keeping tuition at reasonable levels,” he said, “without impairing the abilities of students who come to the university.”

A lot has been said about the severity of the student loan debt crisis in the United States. Much of the discussion, however, has centered on the perils of overpriced private schools; schools like New York University, which jack up tuition rates when endowments don’t raise “enough” money and get cozy with big banks to dole out student loans to unsuspecting freshmen.

What hasn’t been focused on, and what is more unsettling, is the five-digit debt some students are accumulating at public schools. Public schools are supposed to be the economical way to go about getting a higher education. They receive government funding and can keep tuition low, but it’s the hidden fees and living expenses that are upping the amount of debt for students trying to make the money-friendly college choice.

Christina is a senior at CUNY’s John Jay College and is $58,497 in debt—over twice the amount the average student has after earning a four-year degree. Why so much debt? While John Jay only costs $5,500 a year, she paid $13,999 per year for three years to live in the dorms. The dorms, called The Towers, are a CUNY-wide residence not directly affiliated with John Jay, and she was essentially forced to live there because, while an apartment in Harlem would be cheaper, her student loans can’t be used toward rent.

The Towers were Christina’s only option if she wanted to go to John Jay—the best school for what she wants to do, which is work for the FBI. Commuting from Long Island would leave her little time for homework and her part-time job, and paying for an apartment out of pocket was out of the question. Christina now lives in an off-campus apartment with three other roommates, but her costs are still rising. Tuition increases every year, and she still has two more years of graduate work to complete.

Her situation is all too common in the CUNY and SUNY systems, state schools that are supposed to level the economic playing field but are having to increase their tuition because of budget cuts and the floundering economy.

In his 2010 State of the Union address, President Barack Obama said, “No one should go broke because they chose to go to college.” Well, they are, and it’s escalating into the largest financial crisis our country has ever seen.

The amount of student loan debt in the U.S. will top $1 trillion next year. According to the Department of Education, there are over 1.4 million students in student loan debt. Collectively, they owe $829 billion, a number that recently topped the amount of credit card debt in the nation for the first time ever.

Student debt is growing at a rate of $90 billion a year, according to Alan Nasser, professor of political economy at Evergreen State College and author of The Student Loan Swindle.

“The extraordinary growth of student debt paralleled the bubble years, from the beginnings of the dotcom bubble in the mid- 1990s to the housing bubble,” Nasser said. “In the build-up to the housing crisis, the major ratings agencies used by the biggest banks gave high ratings to mortgage-backed securities that were, in fact, toxic. A similar pattern is evident in student loans.” The default rate for student loans is 25 percent— the same as the mortgage default rate at the height of the housing crisis.

Only 40 percent of student loans are being repaid, while the other 35 percent are delinquent, meaning payments have been missed. According to the Department of Education, this is the lowest repayment rate the student loan industry has ever seen, and there aren’t many options for those in financial trouble.

A diploma can’t be repossessed and basic consumer protections don’t apply. Student loans can’t be discharged in bankruptcy (unlike, say, gambling debts), the statute of limitations for a collection agency to sue a borrower does not apply, student loans don’t need to adhere to state usury laws, which cap interest rates, and federal student loan debt collectors don’t need to adhere to the fair debt collection rules. They can call as much as they want, whenever they want and can garnish wages and withhold tax refunds. It’s gotten so out of control that students have resorted to lying on their loan application forms to get more federal aid or setting up websites to panhandle for money on the Internet.

Elizabeth Warren, the brain behind the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and a current Massachusetts senate candidate, has spoken out about the toxicity of student loans. “Student loan debt collectors have a power that would make a mobster envious,” she recently told the Wall Street Journal. Because of the lack of regulation, borrowers default, lose their homes, have their wages garnished, tax returns confiscated— livelihoods are lost. And nothing substantial has been done to change this.

Just a few weeks ago, hundreds of CUNY students took to the streets to protest tuition hikes and were joined by members of the Occupy Wall Street movement. These students are afraid that the once-affordable place to earn a degree will soon be out of their reach unless they take out more and more loans. Experts predict that, eventually, there will be no more money to loan to those who want to go to college because loan providers keep losing money on the increasing defaults. This is particularly frightening for the federal government, which provides 10 times as much in student loans as private lenders do.

“If the government runs out of loan money it would be much worse than any burst mortgage bubble,” said Mark Katrowitz, a financial aid expert who runs finaid.org. “The entire economy would collapse.”

Christina has accepted the fact that she’ll be paying her loans back for a long, long time.

“I think I’ll be paying them back for the rest of my life,” she said. “Government jobs don’t pay very well, but I’ll retire with great benefits.”

CUNY launched a voting drive aimed at battling apathy among young voters and students.

CUNY students are encouraged to wear their school’s colors and apparel to the polls. The university system got Barnes & Noble to give students a 25 percent discount on collegiate apparel to help. Campus stores are giving out “CUNY VOTES” buttons every day until the election. Faculty members have been recruited to encourage students to vote Nov. 2.

So it’s puzzling to consider the 2010-11 State Executive Budget’s recommendations to cut support for The City University of New York—by about $84 million for the system’s senior colleges, and by almost $22 million for community colleges. One of the few, and the most important, ways that New Yorkers can meaningfully plan for the future is through higher education. A college degree is associated with better career opportunities, a higher lifetime income and improved health and job security.

Making cuts to one of the state’s few pipelines to jobs—a true engine of workforce and economic development—is a serious public policy mistake. What’s more, it ignores three critical trends.

First, CUNY is experiencing record enrollment. Spring enrollment of 257,000 is the largest ever for that semester, up more than 5 percent from last year. Fall 2010 registrations are on track to top last year’s record high.

Second, CUNY is in the midst of an academic renaissance. Increased enrollment includes many more high-achieving students. The celebrated Macaulay Honors College is producing some of the city’s finest graduates. And CUNY colleges are regularly included on “best value” lists for public institutions.

Third, the federal government is elevating public higher education on the national stage. The American Graduation Initiative would invest $12 billion into strengthening community colleges and helping an additional 5 million students earn degrees and certificates by the year 2020.

“Time and again,” President Obama has said, “when we placed our bet for the future on education, we have prospered as a result.”

CUNY’s six community colleges serve more than 89,000 students through degree programs, job training and professional development. These resources are a necessity in an increasingly competitive marketplace, and CUNY’s community colleges are nationally recognized for innovative work. Yet both the state and city are recommending substantial cuts to community college budgets.

In a time of economic uncertainty, New York should be protecting these assets. The recommended reductions to CUNY’s budget must be restored.