They’re also a natural extension of our K-12 public school system. With a New Deal for Higher Education, the statewide union advocates for a system that helps students seamlessly transition from public K-12 classrooms to the lecture halls of New York state’s world-class network of public colleges and universities.

But years of underfunding have led to a steady decline in critical support for students’ academic progress and success. Although the last state budget cycle made meaningful investments in public higher education, the need is still great due to years of underfunding.

Many public colleges and universities are forced to raise tuition and/or make cuts to academic programs and student services to survive ─ cuts that disproportionately effect low-income and black and brown communities. Every student deserves access to affordable and accessible higher education. That means public colleges and universities that don’t break the bank, and that are located within the local community so that individuals from every stage of life have opportunity. New York state must continue to invest in and strengthen our SUNY, CUNY and community colleges.

The New Deal for Higher Education campaign seeks to recenter our public colleges and universities as a public good. New York state must reaffirm public higher education’s role in our society by standing up for a just, inclusive and well-funded public higher education system.

This investment would establish SUNY, CUNY and our community colleges as leaders in growing New York into a thriving and just society for the coming century. Higher education contributes to the vibrancy of our communities by preparing students to be our future workforce and citizens. From teachers, nurses and technicians to programmers, paralegals and IT specialists, our world-class public higher education system must deliver the skills necessary to tackle the future.

The education and training available to students in public higher education also creates economic mobility and reverses economic disparities. If our public higher education system is affordable and accessible to all, it can be a pillar of a more just world.