NEW YORK — When George Caffentzis was teaching philosophy in 1976 at the City University of New York system, none of his students had to pay tuition.
That changed within a matter of just two years after New York City went into a financial crisis and needed help from the federal government. Because the city was broke, Caffentzis said, so too was the CUNY system, and charging tuition quickly became a proposition.
“So in order to presumably beat the debt, tuition would have to be charged. So this was the logic that occurred in 1976 and led to a historic change,” Caffentzis said, “and eventually led to a decline in enrollments,” as well as mass layoffs of non-tenured faculty, including himself. Continue reading “Students March Through New York For Small School’s Struggle”
