Pataki Gets Wacky

The governor plans to cut TAP, wants 15-credit minimum to get TAP.
Meanwhile, new 38% pay increases for Pataki and state legislators.

By John Olafson

Governor George Pataki seems to think that the only people who should be eligible for TAP, the state-funded Tuition Assistance Program, are those who don't need it.

As part of his proposed 1999-2000 budget, Pataki proposed a raise in the requirements for eligibility for TAP from enrollment in 12 credits a semester to 15. He also wants to raise the portion of tuition a student pays under the program from 10% to 25%. (It used to be 0% until 1995.) A student currently paying $320, about 10% of the current CUNY tuition, would pay about $850 under Pataki's proposal.

Why is the governor trying to do this? He says it's about saving money. The proposal would reduce the projected budget for TAP by $114 million. But the projected budget surplus for the state is $1.79 billion-about 15 times greater than the projected savings on TAP.

He also says it's about raising standards. Because "fewer than two of every five college students in New York complete their baccalaureate degree in four years," raising the credit requirements will promote "timely completion of degree programs." Under Pataki's proposal students who complete their degrees in four years will receive reimbursement for the tuition they had to pay on their own.

But the amount of time it takes a person to complete college has little or nothing to do with how well she performs, and a lot to do with how many hours she has to work to get by. Poorer people, of course, tend to have to work more because their families can't do as much to support them.

Pataki's attack on working students echos those Giuliani regularly makes on CUNY students.

Mohammed Alam, a  CCNY sophomore Film major and member of the International Socialist Organization, told the Messenger, "If Pataki's plan is imposed than working class students-most CUNY students-can not go to school. Fifteen credits is impossible to take while working full-time."

If cutting working people's access to the financial aid they need to attend college will make them work harder-an absurd assumption-why can't this logic apply to Pataki, his top aides, and state legislators? Just a month ago, state lawmakers voted a 38% wage increase for themselves and Pataki. Five days after proposing the cuts to TAP, Pataki gave pay raises to six top aides, each raise  worth about $20,000

In response to the governor's education proposals in this year's budget, Oswald Graham, City College's NYPIRG coordinator, told the Messenger, "Anything that causes detriment to college students in New York is truly a tragedy and needs to be re-examined by the public as a whole."

"The only way we can save our educational rights is through mass struggle, by organizing together and fighting back," asserts Alam.