At a student-organized rally in the Rosenthal Library of Queens College, students met with City Councilmember Peter F. Vallone, Jr., to voice their concerns about the possibility of budget cuts affecting their already slashed scholarships.
On Monday, May 3, Vallone and students voiced similar concerns over the potential cuts to the Vallone scholarship, otherwise known as the Merit scholarship. It is offered to 14,000 CUNY students, almost 2,000 of them from Queens College.
The scholarship, which had been named after and created by former City Council Speaker Peter F. Vallone, Sr., is meant to reward full-time students who manage to maintain a B average or better at any CUNY school.
Unfortunately, the scholarship amount has recently varied a great deal. In 2008, students were offered $1,240 and that award was cut by more than half the next year when students were only offered $500. It was only after some critical negotiations that Vallone was able to increase the scholarship amount to $650 for the 2010 school year.
CUNY students citywide rely on that money more than ever now because of the 14 percent hike in tuition this year.
“Higher education should be a possibility for every child in New York who works hard and wants to improve their life,” Vallone said. “Even when times are tough, we cannot forsake the next generation of New Yorkers.”
Christina Kofron, a junior at Queens College who had been awarded the Vallone scholarship noted, “They don’t realize how much money we are actually spending. The point of a CUNY school is so that students can afford to go to college. Add in the tuition hikes, overpriced textbooks and transportation, whether they are in metro cards or gas, and students are barely making the cut for attending college. Cutting our scholarship even more is one more burden we don’t need.”
Along with the scholarship, CUNY fears they could lose $30 million from their budget. Alarm rose after Vallone scholars realized that the program did not appear on Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s preliminary budget.
According to Vallone, “While the decision on what to cut is the Mayor’s, all cuts are the fault of Albany’s incompetence and their taking of New York City funds to distribute around the state.”
