Its a very merry muppet christmas movie download.JPG” alt=”" width=”300″ height=”222″ />Showing a healthy bit of solidarity that NYU seems to have been lacking, all of SUNY and CUNY (including faculty, staff and students) have banded together to protest Governor Paterson’s budget cuts that will be in full effect beginning April 1st, according to their press release.

A massive protest has been planned beginning at 4 p.m. in front of Hunter College (East 68th Street and Lexington Avenue) with related ripples to be felt all the way up at the Buffalo and Purchase campuses. A demonstration is also planned for outside of Governor Paterson’s New York City office on Third Avenue between 40^th and 41^st Streets scheduled to begin any minute now.

The group’s release puts SUNY’s 2009-10 budget $140 million short of the previous year, following a $215 million cut and a tuition increase of $320 per term in 2008-09. CUNY’s losing about $65 million in funds and will also suffer a tuition hike. Packed with additional information and eloquent words, the full press release can be read here.

And so where does that leave us? These kids have banded with their faculty to fight perceived injustices in an organized and respecful way. These injustices include tuition hikes of a few hundred dollars—that’s what you probably pay in campus Starbucks lattes per semester. Yet we get a broken lock and a few scatterbrained walking anachronisms yelling from a balcony. Our move, guys. Maybe it’s time to step up our game and try again, eh?