Pursing education programs at the City University of New York (CUNY) has been becoming extortionate. Instead of being the learning institution it is meant to be, the university is becoming a luxury resort. The CUNY university management has heavily invested in sporting, music and other co-curricular expenditures including modern hostels (cuny.edu, n.d). Additionally, to remain the best in the country, the school has invested in quality staff whose remunerations must be kept high to dissuade them from seeking greener pastures elsewhere. With all these factors, the cost of fee has skyrocketed making learning at CUNY expensive.
One factor that has contributed to the increase in fees at CUNY is the cost of supporting amenities whose purpose is to improve the quality of delivery of academic programs. CUNY has made significant investments in support infrastructure and programs to attract and retain students. While these programs are vital to the success of academics, the overall cost impacts negatively to the attraction and retention ability of students at CUNY. Accommodation and sporting leads in the list of expensive support amenities at CUNY.
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At CUNY, the cost of accommodation at student’s hostel has escalated significantly in the past few years. CUNY holds the record as one of the University systems in the US that host one hundred percent of their students (Cherry, 2016). In a bid to provide quality experiences to students to encourage entry and promote the quality of education and degrees obtained at CUNY, the university has heavily invested in hostels. Moreover, CUNY also provides modern facilities for students that makes them feel at home and precious in the institution. However, the luxury of modern hostels comes at a cost for the student often causing affordability issues.
Apart from luxurious hostels, CUNY puts excessive amounts of money sporting activities and supporting student athletes. The university has a pretty robust sporting department which enjoys professional level support including trained staff and state-of the art sporting facilities. The University sporting teams including those in basketball and football enjoys better sporting gear than most of the professional sporting teams in New York (cuny.edu, n.d). Trainers and other support staff at CUNY enjoy large pays and bonuses for being in the most elite of teams. At the end, the university end up using excessive amounts of money on sporting events that are not core activities.
The employment of highly competent staff at CUNY also leads to the proliferation of school fees for student. CUNY enjoys the services of the most competent staff from around the US who also get relatively small loads of work (Cherry, 2016). To maintain staff at the university, modest pay and working conditions have been put in place for workers. Therefore, compared to other institutions of higher learning, CUNY has a relatively high educator to student ratio. The cost of staffing comes from both teaching and non-teaching employees at CUNY.
The high demand for competent workers and competition with other universities has driven the cost of hiring teaching staff at CUNY extremely high. Compared to other universities professors and public workers in the city of New York including the governor of the State, CUNY professors earn a fat pay (Linge, 2019). Additionally, CUNY provides high level of privileges for research endeavors of teaching staff and ability to maintain low teaching requirements for tenured professors (Cherry, 2016). Due to these factors that increase the cost of running the school, the fees increases significantly.
Apart from the teaching staff, CUNY also spends a significant amount of money on the recruitment of non-teaching workers to ensure optimal utilization of state of art co-curricular activities. Each year, CUNY hires staff for the operation sports instructors and laboratory technicians. These people add up to the pay-roll and consequently the fee that students must pay to study. The cost of hiring additional workers to facilitate and complement non-teaching activities is especially a high cost for the university.
Tuition fee has been the most affected of all the increased cost at CUNY. Compared to the tuition fees paid by students in the 2000s, tuition fee at CY has risen three fold. An increase in tuition fees has resulted in several demonstration and strikes by both students and faculty. For example, the recent proposed increased by $ 200 dollar sparked mass protests from students and faculty who said it would cause them to leave school (Floradewan, 2019). Cost of credit and lack of bursaries affect the tuition fee.
There has been a steady increase in the cost of credit at CUNY over the years. The university has been hiking credit without consultations students and other stakeholders. While the increases have been small each year, they have build up to get to exorbitant levels. The results are a student population who increasingly do not finish school due to the inability to afford and generate credit during their courses (Cherry, 2016). Such costs are not as exorbitant in other universities.
Secondly, the increase in tuition comes as the university reduces bursaries and grants that were previously given to students. Cherry (2016) noted that while CUNY has existed to provide an opportunity for people from modest socioeconomic backgrounds to elevate themselves, today it only allows the rich to access. There has been a decline in provision of bursaries for students who need financial help in the university making education at the institution additionally expensive for such people.
The increase in the application for admission at the university in the recent years has also contributed to the increase in costs and fees. A high number of people from both within and outside the state have tried to get into CUNY. The result is an increase in administration cost as support is needed. Application fee and a hike due to high demand increases the cost of school fees at CUNY in relation to high application rate. At long last, the student will have a heavy burden to pay for all the costs.
CUNY charges application fees for potential students who want to join its different programs. Freshmen joining CUNY are expected to pay an application fee of $ 65 dollar while transfer application fee is $ 70 dollar. These are fees that will not be considered even after the student gets enrolled for their choice programs. In the long run, the student is left to foot a lot of bills from the university.
Other than many fees, the demand for the courses at CUNY has propelled the hike in schools fee. Whether the school charges additional fees to cater for increased need or is responding to the high demand by raising the cost of services remains a subject of debate. We have seen the university management complain of lack of enough facilities to accommodate large numbers of students. However, it is undeniable that the increase in demand has contributed to the hiking of fee in the university.
Finally, the introduction of new capital intensive programs at CUNY has contributed to the high fees for the students. CUNY has introduced a variety of programs in order to stay in line with global trends and remain competitive as the institution of choice for both students and faculty (Smith, 2019). However, most of the courses have been implicated in the skyrocketing of the expenditure of the university. This is due to two main factors related with the introduction of new courses including the need for new equipment and facilities and staff to handle the new needs.
The introduction of new courses such as aviation and music require hiring of professional staff to handle them. Some of these courses require highly specialized personnel who are often on demand. For example, music trainers are often highly sought in the US which makes their demands high. Similarly, there is only a handful of qualified trainers in the aviation industry. Therefore, the school has to pay additional costs to attract and maintain such people as aviation trainers and music instructors in additional to professors. The result is an increased cost and fees for students.
In addition to staff, new expensive equipment are required for training students in these courses. The state of the art equipment provided by CUNY for students to excel in education is also a blow to their ability to learn. For example, the cost of maintaining equipment used for aviation training has been reported to be too high not only at CUNY but also in other institutions that train for this course (Smith, 2019). With the high cost of acquisition and maintenance for equipment in such courses as aviation and music, the fee has seen a steady increase.
All these factors result in an increase in school fees for student who have to dig deep in their pockets to stay in class. For some, it has become hard to afford the school fees hence increased cases of drop out. Others have to work during their free time in order earn additional money required to pay school fees. In the end, poor performance in academics is seen as student have limited time to concentrate in school work.
In conclusion there has been an increase fees at CUNY in the recent years which is attributable to a variety of factors. First, boasting of world class facilities, the university has added additional amenities to support education for students. Also, the university is keen to ensure that it maintains a rank in provision of accommodation to students. Therefore, modern and luxurious hostels have been built to ensure students are comfortable. There also has been a hiring spree targeting competent staff to support quality education and training at CUNY. The high cost of staffing is transferred to student fee. The school also charges more tuition fees than other universities of its type. Moreover, with increased credit cost, lack of bursaries for students and introduction of new capital intensive technical programs, running cost has risen steadily.
References
Cherry, R. (2016, July 29). The CUNY Tuition Myth. Gotham Gazette. Retrieved from https://www.gothamgazette.com/city/130-opinion/6458-the-cuny-tuition-myth
cuny.edu (n.d). Tuition and Fees, The University of New York. Retrieved from https://www2.cuny.edu/financial-aid/tuition-and-college-costs/tuition-fees/
Floradewan, S., (2019). CUNY students and faculty rally against $ 200 tuition hike. Quesns Daily Eagle. Retrieved from https://queenseagle.com/all/cuny-students-and-faculty-rally-against-200-tuition-hike
Linge, M. k., (2019). CUNY Staffers making more than Cuomo thanks to taxpayers. New York Post. Retrieved from https://nypost.com/2019/02/16/cuny-staffers-making-more-than-cuomo-thanks-to-taxpayers/
Smith, A. A., (2019). Expanding Beyond NYC’s 5 Boroughs. Inside higher ed. Retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/06/26/cuny-expands-student-success-programs-and-helps-export-them
