The SUNY Board of Trustees called for an additional $73 million from the state last week, in exchange for a one-year tuition freeze. Lawmakers, however, are not granting the extra funds.
Five years ago, during Gov. Cuomo’s first year in office, he proposed the rational tuition program, a statewide initiative that allowed SUNY colleges to increase tuition by $300 each fiscal year.
According to the Oswego State vice president of Finance and Administration Nicholas Lyons, the SUNY 20/20 plan was beneficial to the college for the past five years.
Last month, Lyons and other SUNY financial administrators met with state legislatures to discuss additional fiscal support.
“I understand that the tuition increase puts an additional burden on students,” Lyons said. “We were hoping that the state would increase support to the colleges so that the additional money we need to operate would come from the state, not from the students having to pay for it.”
This past week, members of the New York State Assembly urged the governor to revise this prior initiative and boost funding for public institutions. The state legislature did not budget in tuition hikes for SUNY or CUNY colleges, according to the Cuomo office.
Student Association Director of Legislative Affairs, Mike Hegarty serves on the SUNY student Assembly and represents six SUNY colleges such as Oswego State, Plattsburgh, Potsdam, New Paltz, Brockport and Old Westbury.
Hegarty said he wants students, faculty and SUNY trustees to regulate state tuition increases.
“As an organization, we’re not opposed to a tuition freeze,” Hegarty said. “What we are opposed to is the state controlling tuition.”
In 2008, Gov. Patterson hiked SUNY and CUNY tuition by $600 a year to offset a $15.4 billion budget deficit caused by the Wall Street crisis. The Tuition Assistance Program (TAP), dropped grant aid to help close fiscal costs in the state budget.
In hopes of providing students with steady tuition costs, Hegarty wants the assembly to reinstate the SUNY 20/20 legislation.
“It was passed five years ago and it was successful,” Hagerty said. “It made sure that there was a rational, steady increase in tuition that was always predictable. Students were never suddenly blindsided by an increase. We want students to know how much their tuition is going up.”
Currently, the Oswego State tuition for in-state students is $6,470, according to the Institutional Research report for undergraduate tuition and fees. Over a four year span from 2011 to 2015, tuition has increased by approximately 17.1 percent with the SUNY 20/20 legislation.
“We don’t necessarily want a tuition increase,” Hagerty said. “The SUNY 20/20 [rule] is making sure the SUNY board of trustees has control of the tuition increase and can set it five years in advance, rather than it changing with the government budget.”
Luis Delos Santos, an out of state student from Boston, pays $8,160 for Oswego State tuition.
Delos Santos supports the SUNY-wide tuition freeze, but he wants the SUNY Board of Trustees to delegate the funds.
“I pay a lot of money to go here,” Delos Santos said. “I think that [the state] shouldn’t have control because they don’t know the financial status of the students.”
Next fall, Oswego State students will not notice a reduction in services because there was a decline in negotiable salary increases this year, according to Lyons.
“The impact is something that we can handle internally through the use of our reserves,” Lyons said. “We always anticipate that we need funds and we have sufficient reserves in place.”
State funding for SUNY colleges has slipped more than 30 percent over the past 10 years.
