As Andrew Cuomo readies to resign in disgrace, it’s important to remember the harm he’s inflicted on New York as governor for more than a decade. There is much to pick over — his sexual harassment, his cover-up of nursing home deaths, his enabling of conservative Republicans — and a lot of it has received copious coverage. But missing, even now, is a reckoning with how Cuomo, a triangulating corporate Democrat, targeted public education.

There are two major, state-funded university systems in New York: SUNY and CUNY. The State University of New York schools operate the state’s public community, four-year, and postgraduate higher education institutions outside the borders New York City. (I happen to be a SUNY graduate, with a degree from Stony Brook in Suffolk County.) Within the five boroughs is the City University of New York system, including well-known public institutions like Brooklyn College, Queens College, and Hunter College. These schools, collectively, educate the city and state’s middle class, working class, and poor.

None of these has ever been a priority for Cuomo, particularly CUNY. Though located in the five boroughs, much of CUNY’s fiscal future is determined by the state legislature and the governor. State aid to CUNY, adjusted for inflation, declined by nearly 5 percent from 2011, when Cuomo took office, to 2020, though the state’s gross domestic product has increased. At the same time, CUNY tuition has steadily risen.