A college degree opens doors to personal opportunity and success. But years of budget cuts to New York's public university system have made the path to a diploma even more challenging for students — and not in a positive way.
The State University of New York and the City University of New York have been hit with $2 billion in state budget cuts over the last five years. Public higher ed has little to cheer about in the proposed 2014-15 state budget; the spending plan freezes support for SUNY's campuses and CUNY campuses for the third consecutive year.
To make up the funding gap, SUNY campuses have relied on annual tuition increases. In the late 1990s, 75 percent of SUNY's operating budget came from state support. Now, students are paying the majority of the cost to run the state's public university system. They're paying more and getting less — students routinely deal with larger class sizes, fewer class sections and delayed graduations. Spending cuts have also caused a shortage of full-time faculty, who are struggling to meet the needs of increased student enrollments.
This has gone on for far too long. It must end now.
It's time to reinvest in our public colleges and universities, to ensure qualified students a quality, affordable, accessible education. It's time to create an endowment to hire more full-time faculty and professional staff while also providing a pathway for adjunct faculty to achieve full-time status.
It's also time to invest in student financial aid and opportunity programs and reform the state's Tuition Assistance Program.
We've got a way to make it happen.
UUP has teamed up with NYSUT and our colleagues at CUNY and SUNY's community colleges in "Keep New York a State of Mind" (http://tinyurl.com/murf7x7), a higher education reform campaign that demands an end to chronic underfunding of public higher education and offers a plan to revitalize the state's public colleges and universities.
Our effort calls for the creation of the Endowment for the Future of Higher Education, a permanent endowment enabling SUNY and CUNY to hire more full-time faculty and professional staff so students will get the high quality courses, programs and guidance they need and deserve.
The future of public higher education in New York is at stake. Tell your state lawmakers to establish this endowment. Urge them to increase the state's financial support for SUNY and CUNY in the final 2014-15 state budget.
Investing in public higher education is the key to enhancing New York's economic future. We all win when we keep New York a state of mind.
Frederick E. Kowal is president of United University Professions, the nation's largest higher education union, representing 35,000 faculty and professional staff at SUNY's 29 campuses, including SUNY's public teaching hospitals and health science centers in Brooklyn, Buffalo, Long Island and Syracuse.