The state budget approved in April contained some good news for public college students and their families: It added a $100 increase per full-time enrolled student (FTE) in community college base aid over that proposed by the governor\u2014an increase over last year\u2019s budget.\u00a0 The new budget also restored the governor\u2019s proposed cuts to some financial assistance programs.<\/p>\n
In addition, the governor\u2019s proposed extension of a state law that annually increased public college tuition was rejected.\u00a0 That meant that public college students and their families would not face a tuition hike for the first time in five years.\u00a0 However, the additional funds that SUNY said was necessary to hold the line on tuition was not included.<\/p>\n
That decision left both the State University of New York and the City University of New York systems scrambling.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s some background:\u00a0 Current law had as its central component annual public tuition hikes that turned out to be $300 per year.\u00a0 And tuition did go up $300 every year since 2011, totaling a whopping 30% increase for SUNY and CUNY students.<\/p>\n
As part of the deal to hike tuition, the state agreed to a \u201cmaintenance of effort\u201d promise.\u00a0 Essentially, the state promised not to cut its support for SUNY and CUNY, and that the new revenues generated by the tuition hikes would go toward enhancing college programs, not filling in budget cuts.<\/p>\n
But that promise turned out to be a weak one.\u00a0 For example, the maintenance of effort pledge did not include salary increases for SUNY, which means that $130 million for those increases had to come from somewhere, likely students\u2019 tuition.\u00a0 And the impact has been real: in 2008, before the annual tuition hikes went into effect, students covered 50 percent of SUNY\u2019s budget; they now cover over 60 percent \u2013 thanks to the tuition hikes and the stagnant state support.<\/p>\n
In 2010, the state\u2019s overall budget totaled roughly $130 billion.\u00a0 The current state budget has grown to $150 billion.\u00a0 The state\u2019s financial picture has improved.\u00a0 The case for giving public college students and their families a break from large tuition hikes was compelling enough that the legislature acted.<\/p>\n
As mentioned earlier, in the 2016-2017 final State Budget, public college tuition was frozen at current rates, which helped curb the financial hit to students and their families from tuition hikes over the past five years.\u00a0 However, the final state budget did not add any significant new state monies.\u00a0 Both the State University and City University systems will have to somehow cover budget shortfalls unless state lawmakers act before the end of the legislative session.<\/p>\n
Whether Albany responds is not yet clear, but the chairs of both the Senate and Assembly Higher Education committees have introduced legislation to respond to the public college budget shortfalls.<\/p>\n
Their matching legislation mandates that the state ensure that public higher education funding is enhanced, not cut for the State University of New York and City University of New York systems.\u00a0 The bills also expand the definition of what the state\u2019s support should cover to collective bargaining, fringe benefits and other items to that maintenance of effort.<\/p>\n
In short, the legislation ensures that the state will spend more to boost support for higher education.<\/p>\n
This legislation acts to fill the SUNY and CUNY budget gaps.\u00a0 Given the extraordinary increase in state revenues over the past five years, it makes sense that the priority of the state should be to enhance its support for public higher education, instead of hitting up college students and their families.\u00a0 This legislation does just that \u2013 it fills in a budget gap left as a result of the final budget agreement and does so in a way that is fair and reasonable.<\/p>\n
Now that the two higher education committee chairs have developed a response to the budget shortfalls at SUNY and CUNY, the question is \u2013 will Albany act?\u00a0 Will the Legislature embrace these ideas and will the governor approve them?<\/p>\n
A failure to act will hurt public higher education and the state as well.\u00a0 It is, after all, the state\u2019s investments in higher education that helps create a skilled workforce and an informed citizenry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The state budget approved in April contained some good news for public college students and their families: It added a $100 increase per full-time enrolled student (FTE) in community college base aid over that proposed by the governor\u2014an increase over last year\u2019s budget.\u00a0 The new budget also restored the governor\u2019s proposed cuts to some financial […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1675"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1679,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1675\/revisions\/1679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}