Parents are rebelling against Gov. Cuomo's bare-knuckled strategy to deny state aid to nearly 400,000 "legal" college students if the Legislature refuses to provide tuition assistance to illegal immigrants or tax credits to supporters of parochial schools.
Long Island mom Christine Intrieri launched a letter-writing campaign to Cuomo and state lawmakers opposing the governor's controversial tactic after reading about it in Saturday's Post.
"I am outraged at Gov. Cuomo's ultimatum hidden within the Dream Act," Intrieri said, referring to the plan to provide tuition aid to college students who are undocumented residents.
She said she and her husband are "third-generation Americans" who work a combined 100 hours a week to stay afloat
Intrieri, of Lindenhurst, has a daughter who attends Loyola University in Maryland and a son who is a high-school junior, and depends on financial aid.
"Most of the colleges he is looking at are in New York state," she said. "I am terrified of the thought of being denied parent loans after taking them out for three years for my daughter. I don't know from year to year how my children's tuition will be met."
Addressing Cuomo's proposal, she said, "How dare you use these children as pawns to promote your agenda? . . . How dare you deny fourth-generation New York residents the opportunity to attend college? While I'm not opposed to the idea of children of illegal immigrants receiving aid to attend college here, to do so at the expense of families who have earned the right to be eligible is disgraceful."
Intrieri, a registered Republican who voted for Democrat Cuomo's re-election last fall, added, "I will NOT vote for anyone who supports this bill."
The gambit has even provoked a backlash from parents who support the governor's other education reforms, such as bolstering teacher accountability and improving failing public schools.
"It's radical," Staten Island parent Sam Pirozzolo said of the poison-pill amendment. "He's using college students as bait."
Cuomo ignited the furor when he linked the Dream Act and the Education Investment Tax Credit Act, which provides tax benefits to donors who contribute to parochial and private schools, to the Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) in a recent budget amendment. The bill is crafted in such a way that the Legislature can't reject the Dream Act tax credit without also wiping out $1 billion in tuition grants to more than 372,000 students.
Cuomo — who is using his budget-writing powers to try to nudge the scandal-scarred Legislature to negotiate an ethics overhaul and education reform — appeared to back off the TAP proposal on Sunday.
"There is no need for hysteria," a Cuomo administration official told The Post. "The governor will not sign off on a budget without TAP, period."
Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos (R-Nassau) and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx) vowed to protect tuition aid.
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