CUNY kids are spoiled for a fight

Hell no, we won’t pay!

Is this Occupy Wall Street redux — with iPhone-hugging, Mac Powerbook-wielding, dilettante activists?

Nope. This is the city’s higher-education system, gone mental.

City University trustees voted on Monday to increase tuition at the system’s 24 campuses by a gentle $300 each year, topping out in 2015. That’s about the price of a couple of pairs of athletic shoes.

But before the vote got rolling at Baruch College, some 200 students, their numbers swelled to maybe 1,000 by bored, idle Occupy types, plus the ubiquitous union members who never miss an opportunity to whine about injustices suffered by others, came out to chant and bang drums.

“Fight! Fight! Education is a right!”

They also managed to get classes canceled for students who can’t afford to miss a day.

But things really got started when Bill Crain (pictured), a City College professor (of psychology, no less), stormed seated CUNY trustees with his body, causing a small crisis among campus security guards, who booted him from the room without arrest.

“You owe us an apology!” yelled Crain, lunging toward Benno Schmidt, the renowned educator who heads the board of trustees.

“Traitor!”

Who’s the traitor?

Professor Crain earns $115,000 annually from City College. While this may not place him among the 1 percent of richest Americans, it certainly lands him in the top 10.

“I didn’t get into teaching for the money,” he told me without irony.

“So many students have a hard time to make ends meet,” he complained.

I reminded Crain that 60 percent of the CUNY student body who can’t afford college — some 90,000 full-time students out of a total enrollment of 150,000 — get their entire freight covered by state and federal financial aid. (Part-time students have never gotten a tuition break. Some 10,000 more kids now get their tuition reduced partially.)

These numbers will not change.

But, according to the good professor, just filling out forms for financial relief is a “humiliating” process.

“They stand in line, and beg,” he said. I guess I did a lot of begging back when I got financial aid at the State University, and I suffered no long-term emotional damage.

“It would be much simpler to get back to free tuition,” said Crain. How about free professors?

To put things in perspective, a year of CUNY tuition for in-state residents who pay full freight, $4,830 last year, will climb to $6,330, max. Community colleges will cost $4,800. Compare that to the State University’s 2015 tuition of $7,603.

That doesn’t begin to explain NYU’s mind-boggling $41,606 bill. Or Columbia’s tab of $43,088. Mind you, these prices jump every year.