The University of the West Indies continues to strive for sustainability outside of the region, even in the light of Barbados charging tuition at the Cave Hill Campus creating a drastic reduction in enrollments, now the tertiary leader is aiming for the United States market…

The SUNY UWI Center is a direct response to the critical need to increase the leadership skills and capacities and opportunities for full civic participation among young people in the Caribbean, the Caribbean diaspora and the urban areas of New York. While The UWI and SUNY individually have significant ties to the Caribbean diaspora, which sits as a largely untapped resource for impacting sustainable economic development in the Caribbean and New York, The Center is a deliberate effort to combine these interests toward increased impact as The UWI and SUNY manage their roles as agents of change and sustainable development.

The State University of New York (SUNY) is the largest comprehensive public university system in the US and this partnership signals a key activation of The UWI’s strategic global expansion agenda.

At that point, Sir Hilary Beckles was enraged – he said Barbadian education took a 20 year retrograde step in development and denying free tuition was an assault on the average student of UWI – which can be viewed as a working class mother with (at least) one child.