NYPIRG's Higher Education Campaign

SUMMARY OF FINDINGS

This report examines the trends in higher education funding and costs for students in New York. We examine the state’s support of higher education, the cost to attend New York’s public colleges and universities, and compare these findings with other state’s patterns.

This report finds that, as compared with other states, New York families are already paying a burdensome portion of their own money to attend state public colleges and universities. In addition, compared with other states, New York is severely underfunding its public colleges and universities. The combination of increases in tuition and decreases in state support shifts more and more of the responsibility to fund the state’s colleges and universities onto students and families.

In this report, we highlight trends from the past decade, examine the current situation, and look ahead to what would happen if the governor’s budget proposal for 2005-06 is enacted. We find that the governor’s proposed budget would exacerbate the dire situation in New York, further squeezing students and families.

Specifically, this paper finds that:

State support for higher education is declining in New York State. Between 1994-95 and 2004-05, state spending on higher education decreased by 3.2% and support for SUNY and CUNY decreased by 17.5% when adjusted for inflation. There has been a fundamental shift over the past decade away from state support for SUNY and CUNY.
New York families bear the burden of the loss in state support through increases in tuition. During that same period when state support declined by 17.5%, tuition costs at SUNY jumped by 29% and tuition costs at CUNY increased by 28% when adjusted for inflation.
The combination of declining state support and increasing tuition has led to students and families taking on an increasingly larger share of the funding costs of public higher education in New York. In 2004-05, CUNY students and their families are paying nearly 15 percentage points more of the CUNY budget than their counterparts in 1994-95—a 44% increase in their share over that time period. At SUNY, tuition paid by students and their families in 2004-05 covers 11 percentage points more of the SUNY budget than it did for their counterparts in 1994-95—a 29% increase in their share during that time period.
A parallel trend of decreasing state support and increasing tuition and fees can be seen at the public community colleges. Between 1994-95 and 2002-03, the state portion of the community college pie decreased by 7.5% while the tuition portion increased by 4%.
The cost of attending New York’s public colleges and universities is above the national average and, in particular, the cost of attending public colleges in other large states. Student costs for public higher education in New York are one of the most expensive in the United States, and continue to increase. In fact in the academic year beginning in 2003, tuition and fee costs at New York’s four-year public colleges were the 20th most expensive in the nation. California, Florida, and Texas were less expensive and ranked, respectively, 36th, 49th, and 32nd. The state’s public community colleges were the 3rd most expensive in the nation.
Governor Pataki’s proposed budget for next year would further exacerbate these harmful trends. The governor’s recommendations for 2005-06 would further increase tuition at SUNY by $500 and at CUNY by $250 as well as increase tuition annually and automatically each following year based on a price index. In addition, the governor’s budget would only minimally increase non-tuition state-operated funding for CUNY, while reducing that funding at SUNY. The net result would be a statewide further shifting of the burden in 2005-06 so that student-paid tuition revenue would cover more than half of the operating budget at SUNY and nearly half of the total CUNY operating budget.

The major findings of our report are clear: New York State public college and university students are already paying more than the average costs of attending public colleges in other states and the costs are increasing quickly. Moreover, these increases coincide with a drop in state funding for higher education.

This report’s findings should be a wake up call to legislators who are currently considering the governor’s budget recommendations for 2005-06, which would increase tuition even more and fail to provide ample state support for New York’s public colleges and universities. This would represent a continuation in the erosion of state’s historic support for public higher education and substantially increase the burden on students and their families.

RECOMMENDATIONS

State legislative leaders should resist proposals that would undermine the already fragile affordability that exists at New York’s public colleges and universities. As they consider how best to address New York’s projected budget deficit, colleges and universities must be spared from additional reductions in state support or hikes in the costs of attending public college.

In the past, policymakers have agreed to measures that have increased the cost of obtaining four-year and two-year degrees, and decreased state support. This trend is untenable, unsustainable, and endangers New York’s historic commitment to access to public higher education.

Based upon our survey of the rising cost of higher education in New York State and the shift of the burden to fund public higher education from the state onto students and their families, the report urges that New York must:

Keep public college affordable for the students most in need

Keep a lid on the cost of attending public college

Shift the cost of higher education back to the state’s general fund and ease the burden on New York families and its students by increasing state support for public colleges and universities, not through hiking tuition and fees

News Release | Complete “Overburdened” Report

For more information contact Miriam Kramer

top of page | media index | higher education home page | nypirg home