{"id":374841,"date":"2026-10-16T14:42:29","date_gmt":"2026-10-16T14:42:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/374841\/"},"modified":"2026-10-16T14:42:29","modified_gmt":"2026-10-16T14:42:29","slug":"cuny-tells-undocumented-students-not-to-be-intimidated-out-of-applying-despite-trump-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/374841\/","title":{"rendered":"CUNY tells undocumented students not to be ‘intimidated’ out of applying, despite Trump lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chancellor F\u00e9lix Matos Rodr\u00edguez encouraged undocumented immigrant students to keep applying to the City University of New York (CUNY) on Thursday amid President Trump\u2019s legal challenge to New York\u2019s in-state tuition policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want anybody to be confused because there\u2019s lawsuits, and because of other things, that you should be intimidated not to be able to apply,\u201d Matos Rodr\u00edguez said at an annual \u2018Welcome to CUNY\u2019 event for high school seniors<\/a>. \u201cNot the case.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll go to court, defending the state law that guarantees that, so that we can continue to benefit all CUNY students,\u201d he added, alongside Chancellor Kamar Samuels at the Borough of Manhattan Community College.<\/p>\n

\"CUNYCUNY and New York City Public School Chancellors Felix Matos Rodriguez and Kamar Samuels deliver \u2018Welcome to CUNY\u2019 letters to high school seniors at the Borough of Manhattan Community College on Thursday. (Cayla Bamberger \/ New York Daily News)<\/p>\n

In August, Trump\u2019s Justice Department sued multiple states, including New York<\/a>, alleging their in-state tuition policies for undocumented immigrants at public colleges and universities discriminate against American citizens from out-of-state, who have to pay full tuition.<\/p>\n

The annual tuition at CUNY\u2019s senior colleges is $6,930 for in-state students, and $18,600 for out-of-state<\/a>. At the State University of New York (SUNY), tuition is $7,070 in-state and $17,730 out-of-state<\/a>. Community colleges at both CUNY and SUNY cost less.<\/p>\n

New York, including CUNY and represented by Attorney General Letitia James\u2019s office, filed a motion to dismiss the federal government\u2019s lawsuit in late September, citing constitutional concerns, according to court documents.<\/p>\n

The Daily News previously reported on two New York students who feared that the lawsuit, if successful, could force them to drop out of college and give up on their dream careers.<\/p>\n

At Thursday\u2019s school assembly, Matos Rodr\u00edguez and Samuels distributed \u2018Welcome to CUNY\u2019 letters to dual-enrollment students at Manhattan Early College Academy for Marketing & Media Arts and Union Square Academy for Health Sciences, who are among the 70,000 high school seniors to receive the personalized missives this year.<\/p>\n

\"ChancellorChancellor Kamar Samuels distributes \u2018Welcome to CUNY\u2019 letters to high school seniors at the Borough of Manhattan Community College on Thursday. (Cayla Bamberger \/ New York Daily News)<\/p>\n

This is the fourth consecutive year that the letters \u2014 which provide more information about the application process, including that New York has waived application fees through Nov. 16 \u2014 have been given out.<\/p>\n

The chancellors said a record number of the city\u2019s high schoolers registered for dual enrollment through CUNY last school year: 37,000 students.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of our data \u2026 shows that the students who participate in College Now<\/a> or early college, when they come to us, they graduate faster. They have higher GPAs,\u201d Matos Rodr\u00edguez told the Daily News.<\/p>\n

Samuels added that one of the dual-enrollment programs, FutureReadyNYC<\/a>, expanded this fall to roughly 190 schools \u2014 an increase of 11 programs, a public schools spokeswoman said. CUNY<\/a> is one of multiple partners that provide early college credit through the career-focused initiative.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the goal: To make sure that we\u2019re providing as many students as possible with accelerated and college-level opportunities,\u201d Samuels said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chancellor F\u00e9lix Matos Rodr\u00edguez encouraged undocumented immigrant students to keep applying to the City University of New York…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":374842,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[67,85,267,9,24,264,11,10,12],"class_list":["post-374841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-education","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-county","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374841","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=374841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374841\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/374842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}