{"id":282560,"date":"2026-06-30T18:15:23","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T18:15:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/282560\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T18:15:23","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T18:15:23","slug":"exclusive-city-council-funds-free-omny-cards-for-over-1000-cuny-students-in-city-budget-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/282560\/","title":{"rendered":"EXCLUSIVE: City Council funds free OMNY cards for over 1,000 CUNY students in city budget deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

The city\u2019s legislature is putting $700,000 toward a pilot program offering free OMNY cards<\/a> to roughly 1,250 CUNY students across both the fall and spring semesters, funding it plans to announce as part of its Fiscal Year 2027 city budget deal with Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday.\u00a0City Council Speaker Julie Menin\u2019s office shared the news with amNewYork ahead of the planned handshake agreement on the spending plan between her and Mamdani at City Hall on Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n

The cards will provide 75 trips free rides per student \u2014 breaking down to 2-rides-a-day over a five day school week, according to the speaker\u2019s office. It is specifically meant to cover in-person classes and will be offered to entrolled CUNY students who are taking at least two in-person classes and do not already recieve Accelerated Study in Associate Programs benefits.<\/p>\n

The funding will match $700,000 the state is contributing to the same pilot for a combined $1.4 million.\n<\/p>\n

City Council Member Shaun Abreu (D-Manhattan), the council\u2019s Democratic majority leader and Transportation Committee chair, confirmed the funding in a statement. He referred to his own financial struggles in college, though he was not a CUNY student, when making the point that public transit costs should not be a barrier to higher education.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was in college, there were more than a few times when my bank account dipped into the single digits,\u201d Abreu said. I don\u2019t want a single CUNY student missing class because they can\u2019t cover bus or subway fare. We\u2019re taking a major step to solve that problem with this budget, and the future of our city will be better off for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The funding was a key ask of the CUNY University Student Senate and CUNY Rising Alliance<\/a> \u2014 a coalition of CUNY students, unionized faculty, and community organizations seeking to make the system free and improve its quality of education for all of its students.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the past three years, the CUNY University Student Senate has made free transit for CUNY students a top advocacy priority,\u201d said CUNY University Student Senate Chair Akkeem Polack and Vice Chair for Legislative Affairs Rhoda Wilson in a joint statement.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are proud that the Free OMNY Cards Pilot Program will now be funded, marking a major milestone and an important step toward our long-term goal of providing free transit for all CUNY students,\u201d they added. \u201cThis progress is the result of years of persistent advocacy by student leaders, campus delegations, and our partners who continuously elevated this issue. While there is more work ahead, this pilot demonstrates what sustained student advocacy can achieve.\u201d<\/p>\n

To the end, the group cited the $3 cost of a subway, bus, or paratransit trip as a key barrier to financially-strapped CUNY students\u2019 access to education. It would allow CUNY students to access a benefit afforded to K-12 public school students, who each receive OMNY cards<\/a> with 4 free trips per day.<\/p>\n

Most CUNY students, including 90% of CUNY community college students, commute by public transit, with a year\u2019s worth of fares costing over $1,000-a-year for full-time students, according to a 2021 report from the Center for an Urban Future.<\/a> The fare was $2.75 at the time of the report and has since been increased twice.<\/p>\n

City Council Member Rita Joseph (D-Brooklyn), another staunch advocate for the funding, said the conversation about making college more affordable should not be limited to lowering tuition costs.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cAffordability means investing in the whole student. It means understanding that transportation is not a luxury, it is a necessity,\u201d Joseph said. \u201cEvery swipe to campus is an investment in a student\u2019s future, and no one should have to choose between paying for transit and showing up to class.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The city\u2019s legislature is putting $700,000 toward a pilot program offering free OMNY cards to roughly 1,250 CUNY…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282561,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,37264,301,37503,24379,2397,108316,73444,23798,22925,9,24,63,19819,129,131,130],"class_list":["post-282560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-bronx","tag-center-for-an-urban-future","tag-city-council","tag-city-council-speaker-julie-menin","tag-city-university-of-new-york","tag-cuny","tag-cuny-rising-alliance","tag-fiscal-year-2027-city-budget","tag-free-omny-cards","tag-mayor-zohran-mamdani","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-omny","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282560\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}