Last week, as the state budget hearings continued, lawmakers heard pleas from academics, faculty and students that higher educational institutions are struggling, and that New York\u2019s public policies make things worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One consistent refrain was\nthe need for the Legislature to change the governor\u2019s proposed budget by\nclosing the so-called \u201cTAP gap.\u201d What\u2019s\na TAP gap? First, some background.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When Governor Cuomo came into\noffice in 2011, one of the initiatives he advanced was a plan to annually\nincrease tuition at public colleges and universities. The appeal of predictable increases,\naccording to the governor, is that students and their families would know the\nannual cost of tuition. Under his plan,\ntuition would go up annually, but be capped at a certain amount. In the early years, that cap was set at $300\nannual increase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But what was not fully discussed\nwas the impact it would have on the state\u2019s biggest college financial program \u2013\nthe Tuition Assistance Program, or TAP. \nTAP is an almost fifty year old program that awards state financial aid\nto college students \u2013 both at public and independent colleges \u2013 based on\nincome. The poorer the student, the\nlarger the award.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Until Governor Cuomo, the\nmaximum TAP award matched the cost of tuition at public colleges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When the governor first advanced\nhis plan, that relationship was severed. \nInstead the maximum TAP award was frozen at $5,000 annually (it was\nbumped up a few years later to $5,165) while tuition costs annually went\nup. Tuition at the State University of\nNew York today hovers around $7,000. \nUnder the new system, the local college must make up the $2,000 difference\nper needy student out of their own local budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The difference between\npublic college tuition and the maximum TAP award is known as the \u201cTAP\ngap.\u201d That \u201cgap\u201d is increasingly putting\nstrains on the community colleges and four-year public colleges, since they now\nmust pony up a million dollars or so to help needy students \u2013 assistance that\nused to be provided by the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Independent (private)\ncolleges are facing the financial pressure too, since TAP offers less and less\nassistance for low-income students that often needs to be made up by those\ninstitutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In addition, there are\nsubstantial demographic changes in New York. \nThe upstate population is shrinking, particularly among the college-aged. SUNY community colleges have taken a dramatic\nhit, with tens of thousands of fewer students than a decade ago. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As a result of these\npressures, SUNY 4-year colleges have had to raise tuition and administrative\nfees to cover costs. Many SUNY community\ncolleges are teetering on the brink as they grapple with cratering student enrollments\nand tight state assistance. Community\ncollege tuition \u2013 already among the highest in the nation \u2013 has had to\njump. With fewer students, but the same\ncosts, tuition hikes have to cover the difference. Higher tuition results in fewer students and things\nkeep getting worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Independent colleges and\nuniversities are taking a hit too and their share of the TAP awards has dropped\nsubstantially. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
What is to be done?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the short-term, the\nstate needs to cover the difference of the \u201cTAP gap.\u201d Doing so will immediately bring relief to\nstruggling campuses. The help to\ncommunity colleges will need to be even more robust, as some of them are in\ndire financial straits. Also, the state\nmust boost aid to independent colleges to help them make ends meet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
A longer-term solution is\nto modernize the state\u2019s TAP program. \nPeg the maximum award to the cost of public college tuition \u2013 which\nhelps all colleges \u2013 and modernize it. \nTen years ago, the state stopped awarding TAP to graduate students. In the modern age that doesn\u2019t make\nsense. Part-timers \u2013 students typically\njuggling job and family responsibilities \u2013 should get aid, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The state\u2019s Excelsior\nScholarship \u2013 which offers some help \u2013 benefits only a very small portion of\nstudents. Last year, of the total 452,000\nfull-time undergraduate public college students (287,000 at SUNY and 165,000 at\nCUNY), only 25,000 received an Excelsior award.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One hundred years ago,\nreformers pushed to make public school free. \nThey argued that a better educated populace benefited the nation\u2019s\neconomy and strengthened democracy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the 21st<\/sup>\nCentury, education beyond high school is as critical now as universal education\nwas at the turn of the 20th<\/sup> Century. \nPublic policies today should seek to make it more affordable and\naccessible, not less. One place to start\nis by closing the \u201cTap gap.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last week, as the state budget hearings continued, lawmakers heard pleas from academics, faculty and students that higher educational institutions are struggling, and that New York\u2019s public policies make things worse. One consistent refrain was the need for the Legislature to change the governor\u2019s proposed budget by closing the so-called \u201cTAP gap.\u201d What\u2019s a TAP […]<\/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-2359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2359","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=2359"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2359\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2360,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2359\/revisions\/2360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}