Educators, students hold “Save Our SUNY” rally
From Jon Campbell of the Albany Bureau:
More than 300 members of a pair of education unions came together for a rally against Gov. David Paterson’s proposed cuts to the State University of New York system and his higher-education reform plan.
Professors, administrators, students, and others held signs that read “SOS: Save Our SUNY” and “Stand up for SUNY” as leaders from United University Professions and New York State United Teachers spoke out against Paterson’s plans. They said his reform plan would have disastrous effects on SUNY.
“I’m not trying to scare people, but I think (the cuts are) going to kill SUNY,” UUP President Phillip Smith, pictured below, said after the rally. “It is abandoning public higher education all together.”
The governor’s budget would cut SUNY’s operating budget by $118 million and cut the Tuition Assistance Plan by $75 a student. It would give SUNY the authority to set its own tuition—and increase it annually—without needing approval from the Legislature. SUNY would have more autonomy in purchasing and other areas.
Speaking during the rally, Assemblyman Jack McEneny, D-Albany, said Paterson’s plan to give the SUNY system added independence from the Legislature, including giving individual schools the ability to set their own tuition, would decrease the system’s transparency.
“There’s no question that we have to use creative planning,” McEneny said, “but to turn things over to the university system with no oversight is not a good idea. Bring it before the Legislature and let the public look at it. Then we’ll decide whether it makes sense or not.”
Smith said the higher-education reform plan would only lead to problems for the SUNY system.
“We have seen what has happened in our financial industry when deregulation has occurred; the federal government has been asked to bail them out,” Smith said. “What’s going to happen four or five or 10 years down the road? The state is going to be asked to bail SUNY out, so let’s not even go down that road.”
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I think this new bill is not good for SUNY students, it may be good for the Presidents, and the board of trustees of the SUNY colleges to have more managerial power, but it would decrease access and affordability of SUNY to lower income students over the long run, and create a hole in SUNY’s need to improve its quality of educational offerings while remaining a state sponsored enterprise that serve all New Yorkers regardless of income in the short run.There are a few good things about the bill, but overall the bill is not for SUNY students.