Students within the State University of New York system will see a 5 percent tuition increase take effect at the beginning of the next school year, as the SUNY Board of Trustees approved a 2008-2009 budget request, known as the SUNY Compact, last Tuesday.
In addition to the tuition hike, SUNY is also requesting an 8.5 percent increase, totaling nearly $100 million, in tax-payer dollars received by the system. According to David Henahan, a SUNY spokesman, the budget increase will be used to hire 1,000 additional full-time faculty members across SUNY campuses.
Binghamton University President Lois B. DeFleur said she feels that the budget request is ‘fair for everyone’ and will benefit all members of the BU community.
‘Our top priority is to provide support for additional faculty and to provide funding for other initiatives that will improve education for students,’ she said.
The Compact, however, is still a proposed budget request and needs to go through several more steps prior to being accepted and put into action. Next, it must be considered by the governor’s office, who ‘ if he approves ‘ will forward the proposal to the legislative office for consideration as a part of the New York state budget.
Each campus will be able to decide which departments they wish to use their funding for, Henahan said.
In addition to filling a staffing shortage, the budget proposal will also ask New York state to ‘help cover mandatory and baseline needs in terms of inflationary costs, such as the rising cost of energy,’ he added.
The state is also being asked to pay for faculty contract escalations.
‘Campuses need money to fully fund mandatory costs such as union-negotiated salary increases,’ DeFleur said. ‘SUNY undergraduate tuition has not increased in five years and the proposed 5 percent increase is still well below the national average.’
SUNY tuition was last raised in 2003, when it was hiked 28 percent.
The proposed budget request affects all 64 SUNY campuses. The tuition increase will amount to an additional $110 for in-state students per semester.
‘It is important to note that for the neediest students, this increase would be covered under New York’s Tuition Assistance Program,’ explained DeFleur.
This $110 jump will only affect four-year campuses; community colleges have their tuition set locally, Henahan said. Only four-year SUNY campuses will reap the benefits of the increased faculty and resources.
The benefits of the new budget proposal will also include the addition of research programs on campus and support for scholarships for students in science technology, engineering and math.
The Compact also contains initiatives for the ‘greening’ of SUNY, bringing facilities to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Silver Level. The Compact shows plans to expand the New York state Educational Opportunity Program, and will provide students that fall just outside of EOP application range with additional financial and counseling resources.