DAN QUAGLIANA
Special to The Leader
Last November, New York Governor Kathy Hochul (D) was elected to her first full term in office. Hochul’s election was widely seen as a positive development for SUNY colleges, especially Fredonia.
Throughout her time in office, Hochul has made it a priority to revitalize the SUNY system, claiming that “New York must have a statewide world-class public university system that can change lives for the next generation of students.”
She intends to do this by streamlining financial aid and application processes, improving the transfer process and creating a Jobs Accelerator Program. But what does this mean, beyond a set of campaign promises? And, more importantly, what does this mean for Fredonia?
Dr. Bruce Simon, chairperson of the Fredonia University Senate, believes Hochul’s plans for the SUNY system are promising.
“It’s important to keep in mind that Hochul has been the most pro-SUNY governor since Eliot Spitzer (D),” Simon said. “ … So, compared to pretty much any other governor in my career, this is a better starting point than we’ve ever had.”
Just because we have a good starting point from a current gubernatorial standpoint, however, does not mean we also have one in a practical sense. The fact that Hochul is a pro-SUNY governor speaks less of how much she supports the universities than it does that the two previous governors, Andrew Cuomo (D) and David Paterson (D), did not give SUNY colleges as much funding and attention as needed.
“[With the previous governors] the starting line kept moving back and back,” Simon said. “… If it’s the 100-yard dash, we’re probably starting 25 yards behind [where we should be].”
In comparison with New York, students in other states are paying a significantly smaller share of tuition to attend their public universities. Florida, for example, has the fourth-lowest rates in the country, at 21.7%, for students’ share of net revenue coming into their public university system. New York, conversely, has a student revenue share of 31.7%.
Florida, a state that prides itself on fiscal conservatism, shouldn’t be funding its university system more than New York, a state that has a reputation for being fiscally liberal, and has a much more expansive system than Florida. This significant difference is leading SUNY leadership to push the governor on improving our position, which the state should have been doing all along.
SUNY colleges weren’t always this underfunded, however. Before the Great Recession, in the early 2000s, “we were getting cut by the state while our enrollment was rising. And the thought was ‘oh, well, they’re getting more tuition. They can afford it,’” Simon said.
The problem was only exacerbated after the Great Recession. The money that the state should have continued to put towards SUNY colleges was instead put towards the various budget deficits throughout the state.
This formed a budget gap in SUNY funding that hasn’t been closed in a decade. Simon estimates that, when accounting for inflation, the money SUNY colleges should have received since 2007 totals $136.9 million.
The budget deficits across various SUNY campuses, including ours, are only partly due to low enrollment, which the administration has repeatedly claimed.
The vast majority of the deficit, according to Simon, is because “SUNY is still paying the brunt of the burden of getting New York through the Great Recession.”
If we had gotten this money, if the state hadn’t been underfunding SUNY as a whole, then no one on campus would be talking about a budget deficit.
Why is this relevant now? In this year’s state budget, Hochul is calling for a three percent increase in tuition across all SUNY universities. This has been widely panned by both students and professors across the state — so much so that Simon has created a change.org petition fighting against it.
The prevailing argument is that if SUNY colleges are so underfunded by the state, then why are students being forced to pick up the slack?
This is a particularly extreme inconvenience on smaller campuses such as Fredonia, where 91% of students are taking out loans. Statewide, an average of 55% of students are taking on college debt, which proves that Fredonia needs relief more than most other universities.
In the opinion of the faculty at Fredonia, as per the University Senate, this state tuition increase is aimed at the wrong target. The state should be increasing its funding of SUNY, not forcing students to pay even more into what is shaping up to be a system that Albany seems unwilling to fix.