Rami cations of the Removal of Student
Metrocard Progams
Lorenzo Davis
December 22, 2009
Point
At the time of writing, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority of New York
(MTA) is striving to nd money wherever it can in order to balance its budget
for the coming scal year. In addition to the many service reductions proposed,
the program that provides free Metrocards to city students is at risk of being
excised completely. (It should be noted that this does not include reduced fare
Metrocards, but that is not pertinent to this analysis as the principles behind the
two remain the same.) Naturally, New York City students are irate over such
a development, especially now that it has been passed by the MTA Board1 .
The MTA's budget woes are the latest trouble of what many would deem a
dysfunctional entity, and calls have been made for a thorough review of MTA
actions and practices. However, the problems that befall the MTA are not of any
import to this analysis. It is undeniable that the primary, catastrophic eect
of such a cut is that some students will simply be unable to continue attending
their school of choice. In these hard times, families that have grown accustomed
to this sort of nancial help will now be faced with new transportation expenses
exceeding 800 dollars per year.
To understand why this would be a problem, it would help to know how stu-
dent Metrocards are meted out. In short, students that live within a designated
distance from a school receive a reduced-fare Metrocard and students living
without that boundary receive a full-fare (free) Metrocard. It remains a reality
that in the New York City School System, all schools do not confer the same op-
portunities unto their students. This being the case, it should not be surprising
to hear that a great number of city students have opted to attend schools that
are farther from home, but better suit their needs. While prestigious schools
such as Stuyvesant High and Bronx Science may immediately come to mind, we
1 http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/12/14/2009-12-
14_mta_committee_approves_budget_cuts_that_slash_nyc_subway_bus_services.html
1
must not forget vocational schools such as McKee Technical and Edison High
and how they serve pupils whose strengths do not lie in academic achievement.
If all students are forced to pay a at fare for transportation to an out-
of-neighborhood school, the eects are inherently regressive. A at fare will,
ceteris paribus, cost more as a percent of income for poorer families than for the
better o. Due to this, abolishing a subsidy of student transportation WILL and
MUST discourage the disadvantaged from looking for opportunities outside of
their neighborhood, something I feel will hurt New York City in the long run. If
the the local government continues to undervalue the latent potential of students
all over the city, the eects cannot be avoided in the future. These disincentives
will produce results that will only be magni ed over time, potentially forever
tarnishing the idea of equal opportunity in this great city. For these reasons,
I admonish the New York City Council to reject the proposed budget and tell
the MTA to consider the externalities of any cuts they may make.
Counter-Point
Thinking on the margin can reveal a great deal of the reasoning behind the
decision to cut this particular program. As mentioned earlier, the approximate
value lost per student per family is approximately 800 dollars per year. This
may sound like an incredibly scary number, but viewed in the context of other
expenses facing New York families, it simply is not incredibly signi cant. With
the median household income at $53,0002 , and families spending around 18.2%
of their total income on transportation3 , such an increase represents an 8%
increase in the transportation budget or 1.5% of the yearly income. For the
median family, this increase should be readily payable. However, I am aware that
such a simple breakdown is nowhere near a su cient analysis of the situation,
and the main concern is for those students whose school choice will be changed
by such a reduction. To those that would decry such a cut as regressive and
oensive to notions of equity, the MTA could, perhaps credibly, turn the blame
to the Department of Education for allowing such a discrepancy to form between
schools across the city. With that basis, it could be argued that if the city
would address the many problems facing under-performing schools, the impact
of being forced to stay close to home could be signi cantly lessened or nulli ed
altogether.
Conclusion
Now it remains that if this new budget is passed, it is not likely that a signi cant
number of students will change their school choice in response. Students already
willing to spend time and eort commuting and studying at these schools are
2 http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/36000.html
3Transportation Costs and the American Dream by the Surface Transportation Policy
Project
2
likely to place a high value on their education, and thus, are likely to pay
increased costs if it comes down to brass tacks. However, the MTA cannot
dismiss the reality that some of the city's students frankly will not be able to
continue their academic career as desired due to increased costs.
