From: Legislative Gazette
September 29, 2008

Since its founding in 1948, the State University of New York has produced tens of thousands of graduates whose knowledge has helped to generate years of economic growth. Now, that generator is losing its power, the result of devastating funding cuts that threaten to dismantle SUNY.

The threat to SUNY has come in several waves. First, the University sustained a $52 million budget reduction this spring in response to the state’s deepening fiscal crisis. That was followed in the summer by an additional cut of $96 million in state support for SUNY, in response to Gov. David Paterson’s order to all state agencies to reduce their spending by another 7%. As if all this wasn’t bad enough, the state also ordered SUNY to freeze $109.4 million in revenues the University system collects from dormitory fees, food services, bookstores and other payments. The freeze even applies to the revenue SUNY’s three public hospitals collect directly from patients and their private insurance.

Cumulatively, the loss in state aid to SUNY amounts to over a quarter of a billion dollars, making it one of the state agencies to be hit the hardest, and matters could get even worse. Because of the recent crisis on Wall Street, SUNY faces the possibility of even deeper cuts.

Based on this sobering reality, it is no stretch or hype to say that SUNY is in the fight of its life. SUNY has already been cut to the bone and is now looking at being cut into the bone.

The impact of these monumental cuts is already being felt. Some campuses are looking to limit future enrollments, enlarging the size of classes, and freezing searches for new full-time faculty to replace those who are retiring. Others are delaying purchases of supplies and equipment, including new computers for faculty and students, a basic necessity in today’s technologically driven world.

These impacts represent just the tip of the iceberg. Since there wasn’t enough time before classes began in the fall semester to implement any new cost-cutting measures, the cuts will rear their ugly heads again in the upcoming spring semester. Those cuts will take the form of a number of advanced courses being cancelled, as a result of the reduced numbers of faculty to teach them. These are the type of courses that students must take as part of their major to meet requirements to graduate.

Because of these draconian budget cuts, working families who send their children to a public university or college within SUNY face the very real prospect of having their sons and daughters take more than four years to graduate. Already strapped to pay rising energy and food bills, families will be forced to pay thousands of dollars more for a degree that takes five or more years to complete, or they may end up unable to pay the increased costs, and their children may not get the chance to graduate.

The cuts will also hurt working families with high-school age children looking to SUNY for an affordable and quality higher education. Thousands of qualified and deserving students will likely find the doors to SUNY closed, because the money simply won’t be there to give them access to higher education. Without adequate funding, SUNY will be unable to retain the full-time faculty needed to teach them.

SUNY’s core mission is to ensure that degree programs of quality are available to every qualified student. Achieving that mission will not be possible in light of these latest reductions coupled with the soaring demand for admission.

Lest you think that if you don’t have a child attending or looking to enroll in SUNY, this crisis doesn’t affect you, think again.

SUNY is a major engine that drives the state’s economy. It’s responsible for educating the next generation of the best and brightest of New York’s workforce with the type of skills needed to retain and attract employers. Eighty percent of the students who graduate from SUNY remain in New York to live and work. If those students are forced to study elsewhere, New York will suffer a brain drain that will hamper its efforts to bolster the economy.

SUNY says that for every dollar in state support it receives, its campuses return between six and eight dollars to their respective communities.

In a number of communities across the state, SUNY is their economic lifeline. For example, SUNY Stony Brook produces $4.6 billion for Long Island’s economy. UAlbany contributes $3 billion annually to the local economy. Upstate Medical University generates over $2 billion in economic activity for the Syracuse region. The University of Buffalo leaves a $1.5 billion economic footprint. SUNY Binghamton’s economic impact is $673 million. If SUNY campuses are forced to slash their budgets, the repercussions would be far-reaching – not just for these communities – but for the state economy as a whole.

The state’s elected leaders need to rethink these cuts to SUNY and approach state support to the University as an investment in the future economic well-being of the state rather than a drain on the state’s beleaguered finances. The state ought to build its way out of this crisis instead of cutting its way out, and SUNY is the solution. Restoring state support to the levels in the original 2008-09 budget is a good start.

Consider that SUNY was not on the fiscal easy street before this crisis. SUNY had been suffering from a 15-year cycle of underfunding. If a quarter of a billion dollars in cuts are allowed to stand, SUNY may never recover.

UUP is calling on the governor and SUNY administrators to give the University the funding it needs to keep SUNY’s economic engine humming. We need a strong public university system now, more than ever.

The writer is president of United University Professions, the union representing 35,000 faculty and professional staff at SUNY’s 29 state-operated campuses.

http://www.legislativegazette.com/back_issues/08-9-29_for_web.pdf