By Ricardo Brown Jr.
CUNY has launched a new pilot program providing free, unlimited-ride OMNY cards to eligible students with the goal of easing the cost of transportation.
The program distributed 700 OMNY cards to students who were selected from a lottery pool of more than 28,500 students. Officials said there were about 54,000 CUNY students who met the eligibility requirements to submit an interest form for the program.
The cards became active on October 5, 2026, which provide unlimited rides through the fall semester. This is intended to make transportation more affordable to students who may be struggling with the cost of traveling to and from campus.
CUNY officials said they notified the 54,000 eligible students that they were required to fill out interest forms, over 28,500 filled out the form and while 700 students were selected at random and 300 were put on a waitlist.
The pilot program received $700,000 from the New York City Council as a part of the city budget.
To qualify for the program, students must meet a number of requirements which include being eligible for Pell Grants and enrolling in courses for at least 12 credits for both the fall and spring semesters with two in-person courses. They also can’t be already receiving OMNY cards from other programs that offer it, one of them being CUNY ASAP.
For most CUNY students, the constant costs of commuting to campus and back home can pile up over time. In an interview with the author, Jayden, a student at LaGuardia Community College, said he spends $6 a day traveling to school and back home.
When asked if he heard about the pilot program, he said he didn’t hear about it but would have applied if he knew about it. He believes that free transportation would put less stress on students financially and would allow them to use that money for other expenses
Public transportation plays a big part in CUNY students’ daily lives. According to an article in the New York Daily News about 80 percent of CUNY students are graduates of the city’s high schools, which receive free OMNY cards through their senior year for public transportation. The cost of transportation on top of other expenses such as tuition, books, food, and other expenses can be a huge financial inconvenience for students.
Akkeem Polack, the chair of the CUNY University Student Senate, has advocated for free transportation for CUNY students for many years and still does. He sees the program as a steppingstone toward making education more easily accessible with reduced transportation costs.
Polack was quoted in several news outlets saying he knew of a student who recently transferred to York College and told him that she was caught jumping the turnstile and received a ticket. She explained that she jumped the turnstile because she couldn’t afford the cost of transportation every day.
Photo by Rabbi Awuah
Subway fares can create a financial burden for students who rely on public transportation every day.
Even though the pilot program is a significant step toward making transportation costs less of a hassle, A student at York College who requested anonymity told the author in an interview that he believes that the program should be accessible to more students. He also said with the program only giving out 700 cards, it still leaves thousands of students having to deal with the everyday cost of transportation. This shows the limitation of the program since the demand is very high.
Student advocates have pushed for all CUNY students to get free transportation. However, while that’s going on, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is in the process of pushing to make buses fare-free for everyone according to an article in “City & State New York.”
