SUNY Moves Ahead

Legislation will help power new economic growth in WNY

Buffalo News Editorial

Now that the long legislative session has ended, praise is due to those who helped the University at Buffalo pass legislation critical to the future of the institution and community. We will all benefit.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo gets kudos for his NYSUNY 2020 bill as a major accomplishment for academic and economic development in Western New York. UB can now move ahead on its plans to build a new $375 million medical school downtown within the next five years, thanks to the governor and lawmakers, particularly the Western New York delegation and, notably, freshman Sen. Mark Grisanti, R-Buffalo, who hit the ground running.

The $35 million in seed money will allow the university to relocate the medical school from the South Campus on Main Street to its logical new home at the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus. And, over the next five to seven years, it means 3,000 new jobs. In addition, this bill provides revenue to hire faculty and quite possibly move up the ranks of the Association of American Universities. This is a big step forward for UB and community.

This project should be seen as a top public-private collaboration, because the university would pay for the majority of the new medical school through a variety of avenues, which include annual construction funds and philanthropy.

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For SUNY and CUNY, Top Lawmakers Support Plan to Raise Tuition $300 a Year

NY Times

By WINNIE HU

For decades, leaders of the City University of New York and the State University of New York have chafed under the whims of state lawmakers who approved double-digit tuition increases in some years and none in others, leaving administrators struggling to make ends meet with little ability to plan ahead.

But in what some university officials and faculty members are hailing as a major victory, legislative leaders in Albany agreed on Tuesday to a policy that would, for the first time, set a fixed rate for tuition increases: $300 annually for the next five years. In the first year alone, the increase is expected to create an additional $50 million in revenue for CUNY, and $40 million for SUNY.

“The last thing you want in higher education is large, unexpected increases that families cannot anticipate,” said Jay Hershenson, senior vice chancellor for university relations at CUNY.

The agreement, which the full Legislature must vote on before it becomes law, would require that all of the money raised from the tuition increases go directly to the universities, according to lawmakers and their aides. In the past, some of the revenue from tuition increases has been used for other state programs. The agreement also calls for state aid to the universities to be maintained at current levels, unless the governor declares a fiscal emergency.

“Across the country, states have been cutting their university systems,” said Assemblywoman Deborah J. Glick, a Democrat from Manhattan and chairwoman of the Assembly Higher Education Committee. “I think this will stanch the bleeding and begin the rebuilding of what is two great university systems.”

Ms. Glick said the new policy would promote stability not only in the universities, but also in the surrounding communities. “This is investing in our human capital,” she said. “People who go to SUNY and CUNY overwhelmingly remain in the state.”

The increase would affect 136,084 CUNY undergraduates on 11 campuses, including the City College of New York and Hunter College in Manhattan, as well as 909 students taking online classes, CUNY officials said. The current tuition is $4,830 annually for full-time New York residents.

CUNY last raised tuition, by $230, in January, to help offset a nearly $300 million reduction in state aid since 2008 — a loss that brought state financing down to about $1 billion annually, according to university officials.

At SUNY, the increase would affect more than 220,000 students at 29 four-year colleges across the state, including campuses at Albany, Binghamton, Buffalo, Old Westbury, Purchase and Stony Brook. The current tuition is $4,970; it was last increased, by $310, in 2009.

SUNY officials have said the additional money would be used to decrease class sizes, hire more full-time faculty and maintain existing classes and programs.

Leaders at CUNY and SUNY said they would seek to help students eligible for state tuition assistance by covering all or part of the increase, based on the amount of aid each person currently receives. But some students worried that a $1,500 increase over five years would put college out of reach for many people.

“I think it’s ridiculous,” said Cory Provost, a recent Brooklyn College graduate who is chairman of CUNY’s Student Senate. “Families and students are in a bind because of the economy, and trying to fix the state budget by forcing students to pay more money isn’t going to fix the problem.”

But Kaitlyn Beachner, president of the SUNY Student Assembly, said the unpredictable tuition increases in past years had also been difficult for students. While some students are opposed to any increase, she said, the Student Assembly passed a resolution in 2008 calling for a rational tuition plan that would allow increases of no more than 5.5 percent per year. “We want students to know freshman year how much they would be paying for their education,” she said.

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Rational Tuition Still Needed

Daily Star Editorial

Five years ago, we asked the state Legislature to support a "rational tuition" plan for the State University of New York system.

"In 2003, SUNY tuition was hiked about 25 percent at one time. Before that, tuition was raised for 1995-96. That means the Legislature left tuition alone for eight years and then jacked it up a whopping 25 percent. That's not fair to anyone," we wrote in December 2006.

Nancy Kleniewski and Candace Vancko, the presidents of the State University College at Oneonta and the State University College of Technology at Delhi, respectively, addressed the subject more recently in a guest commentary.

"After only one increase in more than a decade, the Legislature raised tuition 14 percent in 2009," Kleniewski and Vancko wrote in March. "Students and their families never saw it coming."

Rational tuition didn't make it through the state legislature in 2003, or any year thereafter. But it's back on the table in 2011, thanks in part to legislation proposed by Sen. James Seward, R-Milford, and Assembly member Crystal D. Peoples-Stokes, D-Buffalo, which would allow SUNY schools to increase tuition by up to 5.5 percent each year over five years.

This plan is competing with the governor's proposal, which would allow university centers such as those in Albany and Buffalo to raise tuition by as much as 8 percent, while holding increases to 5 percent at other campuses.

Critics have argued that both plans allow for too great a potential increase. Under Seward's plan, a student at SUNY Oneonta entering her fifth year of study (a not-uncommon practice) could find herself paying 25 percent more than she did as a freshman.

This still sounds better than having a sudden tuition hike sprung on you in the middle of your college career.

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SUNY economic impact estimated at $20 billion

Buffalo News

ALBANY -- The state university system has an economic impact on the state of at least $20 billion, according to a new report due to be released Wednesday.

The State University of New York, poised to become a player in the state's new regional-based economic development efforts, supported 173,000 jobs and that created $460 million in state and local taxes in 2008-09, the report states.

In Western New York, SUNY's economic impact totals $3.7 billion. The report noted that one in four residents of Western New York are connected to SUNY either as students, employees or alumni.

The study, obtained by The Buffalo News and characterized as the most detailed analysis of SUNY's economic impact on the state, was conducted by the University at Buffalo Regional Institute and the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government at the University at Albany.

SUNY Chancellor Nancy Zimpher, who commissioned the study, will release its findings Wednesday at a news conference in Albany.

Zimpher said the study will help SUNY's goal to see the higher education system "become the economic engine for New York state's recovery."

The chancellor said the study's focus on 10 different regions "will help our campuses define their impact in a more consistent way."

"We're all poised to get ourselves organized regionally. I want to foster collaboration amongst our campuses. That's always been my theme," said Zimpher, who came to SUNY two years ago.

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SUNY Tuition Plan is Rational and Fair

Times Union Op-Ed by ESC President Alan Davis

A pending initiative in the state Legislature is critically important to the State University of New York's future and must be passed before this session closes.

Senate Bill 4709, and its companion in the Assembly, A.6915, would establish a five-year rational tuition plan for SUNY. It also would require the state to maintain its current funding levels and ensure any future tuition increases are reinvested to benefit the student.

SUNY students themselves, who face limited opportunity in the form of closed programs, fewer courses and diminished services, have endorsed such a plan.

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SUNY board directs chancellor to find funding help for students

Fox News Albany

The Board of Trustees of the State University of New York says it unanimously passed a resolution Tuesday that directs Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher to coordinate with all 29 of SUNY’s four-year colleges and universities in working to find new or expanded financial aid options to help protect students who could be adversely impacted by a possible tuition hike.

The board says in anticipation of a rational tuition bill being adopted by the Legislature, each state-operated campus will develop a plan that reflects resources that are currently available, as well as additional financial aid initiatives. Campus presidents will deliver these plans to the chancellor by the end of June.

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Cuomo Backs Higher Tuition at Top SUNY Campuses

New York Times

ALBANY — Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said Monday that he would support allowing the flagship campuses of the State University of New York to charge higher tuition than the rest of the system, a stance that could pit him against fellow Democrats who worry that lower-income students could be priced out of the top schools.

The governor said he would support a State University proposal to set a five-year schedule of tuition increases at all SUNY undergraduate campuses, and would allow the four research campuses — at Albany, Binghamton, Buffalo and Stony Brook — to propose their own, higher undergraduate tuition increases, subject to legislative approval.

“There is no cookie cutter,” Mr. Cuomo said at a news conference. “Some may decide that they need to increase tuition; some may decide they don’t. We’re trying to flip the model.” Under the new model, he said, “we’re not going to tell you what to do.”

Currently, all of SUNY’s undergraduate campuses charge the same tuition for state residents, $4,970, which is significantly lower than that charged by many other state universities.

The governor’s announcement came as he unveiled one of his administration’s first major economic development programs, $140 million in grants for the SUNY research campuses for expansion, part of which, he said, would probably be paid for by the higher tuitions.

By throwing his weight behind the tuition proposals, Mr. Cuomo is thrusting himself into one of Albany’s longest-running and most contentious policy disputes. For years, SUNY’s research universities have sought to set their own tuitions and to vary tuition by campus. Currently, the systemwide tuition rate is set by the Legislature. Mr. Cuomo’s predecessor, Gov. David A. Paterson, supported a “differential tuition” plan last year, but it failed to win legislative approval.

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Report: Upstate losing out on business-startup capital

Press & Sun Bulletin

New York has $4.5 billion in annual research and development funds coming in and the second-highest number of doctorate degrees and patents in the country, according to a study from Rochester-based economic development group Excell Partners.

When it comes to venture capital, however, a recent PricewaterhouseCoopers report showed just 0.2 percent of the $21 billion invested nationwide last year was sent to the upstate region.

That number is "pathetically low," said Assemblywoman Donna Lupardo, D-Endwell.

"What's wrong with this picture? For all intents and purposes, we ought to be in really great shape," Lupardo said. "What's missing? We don't have any seed capital. We don't have any money."

Figuring out how to entice venture capital firms -- groups that invest in innovative companies and collect equity -- to keep their money in New York is part of Lupardo's job as chairwoman of the Legislative Commission on Science and Technology.

According to the 2009 report by Excell Partners, such firms based in New York invested just 9 percent of their capital within state boundaries, with 40 percent sent to Silicon Valley.

"One of the challenges upstate is there is not a lot of cross-pollination among entrepreneurs," said Chuck Schwerin, CEO of Broome County-based Sonostics, a biotechnology startup. "There have been some attempts to do that in New York City, where there are meet-ups where young entrepreneurs come together and talk about issues they have in common, but that hasn't really been the case upstate."

Sonostics, which commercialized a technology to convert the sound of muscle contractions into absolute force, got its start in 2008 and has sought venture capital, but Schwerin said the company likely won't receive that funding until it proves sustainable.

The company grew out of Binghamton University's bioengineering department and made use of a university program designed to partner with innovative startups.

That program -- administered by the Office of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Partnerships -- is part of a growing trend at research universities and something that Lupardo sees playing a key role in the future.

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SUNY Tuition; A Reasonable Plan from Trustees

Watertown Daily Times Editorial

A plan for yearly, modest rate hikes in tuition for the State University of New York gives SUNY and students what is lacking in the present method of setting tuition: predictability.

Tuition for the nearly half-million students at the 64 campuses is controlled now by the state Legislature. Rate hikes are sporadic and subject to political pressures. The last rate hike in 2009 brought tuition to $4,970 a year.

But SUNY did not get all of the rate hike. Most of it was "swept" into the state's general fund rather than going to SUNY, an indirect way of taxing SUNY students to fund state operations.

Over the same time, state aid to SUNY has been slashed.

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A solar light at the tunnel's end

Times Union Editorial

The award of $57.5 million to the University at Albany's College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering to create a solar manufacturing consortium is not just the kind of news we like to hear about a local educational institution. It's the kind of investment we're glad to see this nation make.

It's a feather for UAlbany, of course, and a bonus for the region, that may have just gotten an early front-row seat on the future of solar energy. If it lives up to its promise, the U.S. Photovoltaic Manufacturing Consortium could lead a revolution in solar technologies that generate electricity.

This is the kind of news that gives us hope that the federal government has learned the mistakes it made after the oil crises of the 1970s and that it won't again let the opportunity to chart a sounder energy course slip by. That means more earnestly supporting the search for practical, sustainable energy. It means treating conservation, from home energy efficiency to fuel efficiency standards to sensible speed limits, as a matter of national interest. It means policies that aren't driven by the price of corn in Kansas and the campaign contributions of Big Agriculture.

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