Less $$ for Popular College Destinations in the New NY Budget

Local public colleges are mulling tuition hikes and other cost-saving measures in the wake of deep cuts to higher education in the state budget.

The fiscal year 2012 spending plan, which lawmakers passed last week, cuts about $125 million from State University of New York schools, including community colleges. The cuts are significant, but less than the 10 percent across-the-board slash proposed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Most of the restored funding went to community colleges and teaching hospitals. One in three New Yorkers who go to college goes to one of the 64 SUNYs. 

Westchester Community College has already approved a tuition increase, from $1,925 per semester to $2,075, as a result of the cuts. Rockland Community College trustees are considering one. Tuition for four-year SUNY colleges is set by the state legislature.

Community colleges are funded through a combination of tuition and state and county aid. State law technically requires state support of 40 percent, while schools generally expect one-third of their costs to be covered by the state.

"When we get government cuts, we don't have many options in terms of what we can do," said WCC spokesman Patrick Hennessey. "If state aid goes down, we know we're not going to get dramatically more from the county, so we have to raise tuition."

The school's enrollment has jumped to more than 13,000, growth which is considered to be an effect of  the recession. Meanwhile, personnel costs have risen. Hennessey said that the school will hold off on filling a number of vacant teaching and secretarial positions. 

Rockland Community College spokeswoman Zipora Reitman said the school is mulling an increase to the current tuition of $3,515 per year. State funding of RCC has fallen to 23 percent of the school's total revenue. 

"The Board of Trustees, which votes on the tuition rate, is meeting later this month to review the budget, so it is too early to speculate" on exactly how the school will offset cuts, Reitman said.

Unlike community colleges, where tuition is different for each campus, tuition at the state's 34 other colleges, such as Purchase, is the same across the system and is set by the central SUNY administration. 

Officials at Purchase are awaiting further details before making any decisions about how to offset cuts, according to spokeswoman Geraldine Sanderson. 

"No information has been given, and we're waiting for a directive from SUNY," Sanderson said.

While local officials are not sounding alarms about drastic cuts to programs, the president of United University Professors, the state's largest higher education union, said the cuts could have a dramatic effect on academic achievement.

“Slashing SUNY so deeply means more cancelled classes, fewer course offerings and more students and families forced to pay for an extra year or more of college at a time when they can least afford it," the UUP president, Phil Smith, said.

SUNY Chancellor Nancy Zimpher, meanwhile, is urging state lawmakers to pass a "rational" tuition plan that would increase tuition—which is currently $4,970 per year—in small increments over a five-year period. Cuomo has expressed support for the measure.

Zimpher pointed out that while some students get through four years of school without any tuition hikes, others are subject to two or three increases because of unpredictable changes in state aid.

"This plan is a fair, predictable, and responsible solution for New York families, all of whom deserve access to a top-notch education," Zimpher said in a statement.

Despite the cuts, some silver linings remain. According to Morris Peters, a spokesman for Cuomo's Budget Division, the state has increased funding for the Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) by 2.3 percent, and has introduced a number of measures that will allow schools to find administrative efficiencies.