COLIN PERRY
News Editor
Last Friday, students across the SUNY system participated in walk-outs to protest SUNY 2020 and an extension to the incremental tuition increases students face every year. Protests took place at SUNY Brockport, New Paltz, Purchase and Cortland. But one campus where students didn’t march was at Fredonia.
Since 2011, SUNY 2020 has been tied to “rational tuition,” which allows schools across SUNY to increase tuition up to $300 annually. While SUNY 2020 was initially adopted with a five-year lifespan, Governor Andrew Cuomo, SUNY Chancellor Nancy Zimpher and legislators across the state have been advocating for a five-year extension to the law, which would mandate further tuition increases.
A major reason why Fredonia saw no protests is that the Student Association (SA) is supportive of the annual fixed tuition increases as an alternative to more erratic increases that proved difficult to manage in the past, according to senior finance and computer information systems dual major Jason Burgos.
“We agree with predictable tuition. We agree that tuition should not be raised in lump sums every year—$100 one year, $1000 the next year,” said Burgos, who is also SA president. “Rational tuition was $300 every year, so it was more predictable and more outlined which is better, because you know how much you’re increasing.”
Fights over increasing tuition have been exacerbated in recent months following Cuomo’s veto of the Maintenance of Effort Bill last December. The bill would have prevented standard operating costs at universities from being paid for with these tuition increases, and passed with bipartisan support in the state legislature.
Zach Beaudoin, senior English and international studies double major and SA representative, said that rational tuition has been viewed at Fredonia as a “slippery slope” that has nevertheless afforded SA leverage in negotiating on students’ behalfs.
“Do we get rid of predictable tuition, and then we lose our leverage? Or do we keep fighting for stricter or more effective policies that go to reduce or regulate tuition?” he said.
Bridget Doyle, junior history and political science double major, serves as chair of campus safety in the SUNY Student Assembly and chair of community relations in SA. She argued that students should contact their representatives with concerns instead of staging walkouts.
“It is every student’s right to walk out of class in protest,” Doyle wrote in an email, adding “I believe that a walkout in Fredonia would have been unsuccessful, mostly because it is my belief that walkouts don’t do much for education or awareness on most topics.”
Doyle and the rest of SA are adamant that rational tuition increases will prove beneficial to Fredonia students.
“The need for rational tuition stems from the fact that more costs of education are coming out of the pockets of students, and not from the state,” Doyle wrote in an email. “In the past, funding for higher education barely came out of the pockets of students, but decreased aid has led to sporadic tuition hikes that leave students in poor financial situations. Rational tuition is a first step in dictating that education should not be largely funded on the backs of students.”