President José Luis Cruz today testified before the New York State Assembly Higher Education Committee, urging the group to support The City University of New York’s Fiscal Year 2020 budget request.

Cruz joined CUNY Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Matthew Sapienza at the hearing. He cited the progress Lehman has made in increasing enrollment, improving graduation rates, and providing high-value degrees and credentials.

He called The Equality of Opportunity Projects ranking of Lehman as third in the nation for mobility rate our “brightest point of pride.”

In calling for budgetary support, Cruz said, “Investing in promising programmatic initiatives will allow CUNY to increase the number, improve the working conditions, and strengthen the compensation of its faculty and staff to full support the types of services and the levels of attention that our students deserve; ensure that our undocumented students have equitable access to financial aid; increase the number of class sections available to accelerate student momentum; enhance our ability to connect our students to internship opportunities; improve the quality of our learning and working spaces – both physical and digital; and strengthen our engagement with the communities we serve.

“In doing so,” he continued, “New York State will not only advance the fortunes of its people, but also further stake out a leadership position in the national higher ed conversation.”

You can read the entire testimony here.