My First January Message to the Fredonia University Senate

Read it here!  Happy to answer questions about it in the comments!

Mr. Constructivist Goes to Albany...

...really just as a chauffeur/butler for the Full Metal Archivist, my amazing wife, who's doing an all-day professional development thing in NYS's capitol city this Friday, but I will be in Albany and fairly free from Thursday night to Friday afternoon if anyone wants any unsolicited advice from yours truly, or has any suggestions about what I should be blogging and Xing/tweeting about in the coming days, weeks, and months.  Just putting that out into the intertubes' aether.

State of the State Post-Game

I've got to admit that I found the State of the State Address almost totally demoralizing for almost the entire afternoon and evening yesterday—so much so that I needed time to even start reading the SOTS Book (that's a today project).  It's not that anything that Governor Hochul announced regarding higher ed was so bad; on the contrary, the AI consortium initiative is potentially huge, the top 10% automatic admission is wonderful, etc., etc.  Building new housing units on underutilized SUNY properties?  Why the heck not?  What I was left with, though, was the despairing question, "Is that all?"

What also demoralized me was hearing the Governor talk about long-standing issues and problems that were clearly huge priorities to her using language I've been hoping she would use for SUNY and CUNY—language such as

• "get us out of the deep hole created by decades of inaction"
• "it's a band-aid when we need reconstructive surgery"
• "it takes political will, it takes collaboration...to deliver what New Yorkers desperately want"

—and not use similar language, or really any language at all, on her core responsibility:  to set the terms of debate over pricing and funding SUNY and CUNY.  College affordability was not incorporated into her consumer protection and affordability agenda in the big way I had called for last Wednesday.  And there was really very little on SUNY or CUNY anywhere else in the State of the State.

As statement after statement rolled in yesterday afternoon and evening, my malaise deepened.  Was anybody prioritizing a public goods approach to funding and pricing public higher education in New York State?

Right before I called it a night, after I got ready for bed, though, it hit me.  There was another interpretation for the Governor's silence on these questions:  they were still in play.  Governor Hochul is likely still in discussions with SUNY, CUNY, union leaders, DOB, and others on what will actually go into the State Fiscal Year 2025 Executive Budget.

I didn't have the energy last night to gather evidence for this alternative interpretation of the Governor's silences in the State of the State:  sleep was a higher priority.  But now that I'm awake and rested, I'm seeing evidence everywhere:

• NYSUT's statement (which was released before the State of the State) is very strong, suggesting that the New Deal for Higher Education campaign from 2023 continues into 2024 and that New York's education and higher education unions are in the arena.
• UUP and PSC-CUNY still have not released statements specifically addressing the State of the State.  When do unions decide not to make public statements or go to the media?  While they're still in negotiations.
• SUNY and CUNY's statements accentuated the positives so intently and were so relentlessly optimistic, while remaining silent on what the Governor was silent on, also suggest that discussions are ongoing.  I'm going to read Chancellor King's apparently constative closing—"Under Governor Hochul’s leadership, New York is making a commitment to public higher education like no other state, and for that we are grateful"—as potentially performative (in the speech act theory sense), or if not actually doing something as concrete as naming a ship or marrying two people, at least trying to call hope into reality (think about "is making" and "like no other state" for a while and you'll see what I'm getting at).

So that's my story and I'm sticking to it until I find countervailing evidence.

Today's agenda includes reading the SOTS Book, talking to people from New York State Assembly Higher Education Committee Chair Patricia Fahy's office, and trying to get New York State's progressive politicians and non-government organizations to pay attention to our petition.

Update (9:04 am)

I've already written about the "you can lead a horse to water..." problem facing every awesome SUNY and CUNY initiative aimed at increasing applications, including the new top 10% initiative:  if you don't provide the quality, if you don't price and fund SUNY and CUNY like the public goods they are, then students with better options will go elsewhere.  Public higher ed is in the midst of a net cost of attendance battle—a yield war—and so far the Governor doesn't seem to want to publicly acknowledge it, even when it would advance her overall affordability agenda by forcing "independent"/private higher ed to compete harder on college affordability.

Here's another example of how the Governor's proposals could potentially work at cross-purposes.  Her voter registration initiative acknowledges what's been known for a long time:  college towns tend to vote blue, even in red states and counties.  But what is the likely result of forcing places like SUNY Potsdam and SUNY Fredonia to further downsize their faculty and staff?  Just ask Emporia State.  As Governor Hochul considers how to balance the mix of public and private revenues for SUNY for the coming fiscal year and over the next decade, I hope she also considers the partisan political implications of investing in cities and disinvesting in rural counties.

State of the State Pre-Game

I had a really good talk this morning with Jan Dorman, Director of the Standing Committee on Higher Education in the New York State Senate, arranged by the office of committee chair and Senator Toby Ann Stavisky, on the joint Senate-Assembly Higher Ed committees' #TurnOnTheTAP campaign and legislative package that was launched yesterday.  Soon after, I wrote the following thank-you email to Senator Stavisky's scheduler Marilyn Dyer:

Thanks so much for the opportunity to speak with Jan. I'd love to hear more about the specifics of Senator Stavisky's and Assemblymember Fahy's higher ed agenda and continue discussing ways the Fredonia University Senate and SUNY University Faculty Senate (UFS) could help advance it.

Here's some background on what both organizations have been up to since the fall!

• SUNY UFS October 2023 Executive Budget resolution, Potsdam resolution, and February 2022 Executive Budget statement
• Fredonia University Senate state budget advocacy (resolutions, statements, transmittal letters)
• My official messages as Fredonia University Senate Chairperson to Fredonia Senators
• The official @FredUnivSenate x-twitter account
• My professional blog Citizen of Somewhere Else (for my own individual, non-official purposes)
• My personal x-twitter account @CitizenSE

I'm excited that so many organizations seem to be committing to identifying common areas of state budget advocacy and putting down markers before Governor Hochul's State of the State Address this afternoon and release of her Executive Budget proposal later this month.

If there's anything Senator Stavisky needs from either Senate, please don't hesitate to ask. I'm happy to take suggestions to the Fredonia University Senate Executive Committee (as Senate Chairperson) and the UFS Executive Committee (as chair of the UFS Governance Committee and Immediate Past Vice President/Secretary). I can't guarantee either governance committee or body will be with you 100% on every matter, but we're happy to engage in dialogue to get as close as we can to 100% on as close as we can get to 100% of the topics we discuss!

Have a wonderful day,

It sounds to me that Senator Stavisky and Assemblymember Patricia Fahy (chair of the New York State Assembly Higher Education Committee) are on very much the same page as United University Professions.  I emphasized during the call that although I am a UUP member and active on the Fredonia Chapter Executive Board, I was speaking for myself and transmitting SUNY shared governance body information and talking points.  Will continue to make that clear in communications beyond the call and the email.

Looking forward to continued conversations after the State of the State Address, starting with a call with Assemblymember Fahy's office tomorrow afternoon.

On Increasing SUNY Revenues, Part 4

It's the day before Governor Kathy Hochul's 2024 State of the State Address and I have not yet given up hope that she will make the right call and put forward a proposal for pricing and funding SUNY and CUNY like the public goods they are that responds substantively both to the point made by United University Professions that her predecessors underfunded SUNY to the tune of about $500M per year over the last 16 years and the point made by SUNY System Administration that we can expect that gap to rise another $100M per year over the next 10 years without action from New York State.  But some impromptu comments from Governor Hochul last Friday have raised my level of alarm that she either doesn't understand the situation facing SUNY or is willing to lie about it.  I'll let you go to my x-twitter account @CitizenSE to see the full range of my immediate responses to Governor Hochul's claim that increasing SUNY revenues beyond what she's already done is "impossible." And of course you can read the first three parts of my response to the SUNY report for the rationales underlying those responses.  But here's the bottom line.

The $10M-$17M structural deficit facing my own home campus SUNY Fredonia is no joke.  Even at its "smaller" end, if we are looking only at budget cuts to address it, we are talking job losses on the order of 100-200 positions, depending on the average salary of those who lose their jobs.  Is Governor Hochul really saying that's what she wants for the Village of Fredonia and Northern Chautauqua County?  Because if so, she can expect all of Western New York to go to war with her.

"No, no, no, perish the thought.  All I'm calling for is to raise revenues by raising tuition.  Calm down."  In this economy?  When 91% of Fredonia's Class of 2019 graduated with student debt?  When Fredonia's seen a decrease in enrollments on the order of 40% since Fall 2007?  What clearer signal can the students accepted at Fredonia but choosing not to attend be sending that any further tuition increases are unacceptable?

"No, no, no, you misunderstand.  Any tuition increases at Fredonia will be more than offset by increases in indirect state financial aid."  Well, now we're getting somewhere.  What matters to students and families is the net cost of attendance per year.  The sticker price at Fredonia, when all costs associated with attendance are factored in, is the equivalent of four very small new cars over four years (about $25K, give or take).  Governor Hochul should be asking herself (and, if she doesn't know how to answer the questions, then asking SUNY System Administration) what's the average net cost of attendance at Fredonia?  The mean?  The median?  The average amount of debt a Fredonia student graduates with for the Classes of 2020-2023?  The mean?  The median?  And how much of that net cost has been reduced by Fredonia taking direct state aid operating funds and using them to discount tuition each year on top of scholarships offered by the Fredonia College Foundation?  Then start asking the same questions about every campus "in the red" on enrollments over the last decade from page 29 of the SUNY report.  If she does that, Governor Hochul will get a very clear picture of the price wars SUNY campuses have been waging.

I'll have much more to say about this later today, but I wanted to get this much out this morning!

Update 1 (2:32 pm)

Please see today's interview with New York State Assembly Higher Education Chair Patricia Fahy.

Update 2 (3:27 pm)

Yesterday, the Albany Times-Union editorial board laid out a position very close to what I've been advocating for on this blog, via twitter, and through my work as Fredonia University Senate Chairperson and Immediate Past Vice President/Secretary of the SUNY University Faculty Senate.  I encourage everyone to read it!

Update 3 (6:00 pm)

Check out the #TurnOnTheTAP hashtag on x-twitter for a new initiative sponsored by the chairs of the Senate and Assembly Higher Education Committees, Toby Stavisky and Patricia Fahy.  Also check out the #NoCutsToCUNY #InvestinCUNY #CareNotCuts #FullyFundCUNY #NewDeal4CUNY and #APeoplesCUNY hashtags for ongoing efforts by Professional Staff Congress-CUNY leaders and members (such as by Distinguished Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies and History at John Jay College and The Graduate Center, CUNY Gerald Markovitz) to stave off cuts to the City University of New York.  All these efforts and more are aimed at raising the stakes on the eve of Governor Hochul's State of the State Address.

The key thing to keep in mind is that increasing indirect state financial aid by itself won't necessarily help SUNY or CUNY, as students could simply choose private alternatives that are already investing heavily in tuition discounting.  That's why Assemblymember Fahy has been so careful to connect increasing direct state aid to modernizing the Tuition Assistance Program.  That's why the Fredonia University Senate and SUNY University Faculty Senate have been emphasizing the importance of funding and pricing SUNY and CUNY like the public goods they are.

Update 4 (10:54 pm)

Commentary by Blair Horner of NYPIRG also supports shifting the balance of public/private revenues for SUNY back in the direction of greater public investments.

On Increasing SUNY Revenues, Part 3

So far in Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, I've attempted to be a generous, charitable close reader of the SUNY Report on Long-Term Enrollment and Financial Sustainability.  I've pointed out how rhetorically and politically effective it is likely to be and praised its customization toward its primary audience:  Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature.  In both posts, I've argued that Chancellor King and SUNY System Administration are putting the ball exactly where it belongs at this stage of the budget season:  firmly in Governor Hochul's court, within days of her State of the State Address on January 9 and release of her Executive Budget proposal by January 16.  The essential function of the SUNY report is to make the following question unavoidable:  what mix of additional public and private funding sources will be needed to put SUNY on sound financial footing over the next decade?

As further evidence of Chancellor King's political savvy, consider how the report is being covered in the media thus far.  This Spectrum News headline says it all:  SUNY System Sustainability in Doubt without More Tax Support.  Eileen Buckley quoted a UB student and United University Professions President Fred Kowal as being firmly in the pro-public funding camp.  I believe Kathleen Moore's headline writers improved her story's headline (check me on that!):  "SUNY warns of future $1B deficit without higher tuition or more aid" (although that "or" remains misleading).  Janet Gramza went more into summary/paraphrase mode, but, in echoing the report's emphasis on SUNY proactivity and fiscal responsibility, reinforces the notion that SUNY is good investment material.  (I mean, show me anything else with a return on investment of 817%!)

I've been doing my part to bring some momentum to the pro-public funding camp.  The Fredonia University Senate Executive Committee's petition has been going a little viral in the last 24 hours, thanks to an x-twitter thread I posted yesterday morning and updated in the afternoon and evening, setting up a little friendly competition between my friends in public colleges and universities and private ones in promoting our petition.  In less than 12 hours, I would guess all my tweets promoting our petition earned on the order of 30K views, 250 likes, 125 reposts, 12 quote tweets, and close to 60 new signatures on the petition itself.  As of this posting, we are approaching 600 signatures, more than doubling the previous high-water mark of our original "New Deal" petition to Governor Cuomo from Spring 2019.

In today's post, I'm going to share some of my own thinking on the proper mix of public and private funding sources for public higher education—thinking that builds on and goes beyond the resolution-crafting I've led for the Fredonia University Senate (archived here) and SUNY University Faculty Senate (October 2023) as well as previous posts on this blog (you can trace the evolution of my thinking over a decade ago by looking at posts from 9/24/2011, 5/14/2010, 4/27/2010, 4/17/2010, 3/24/2010, 3/22/2010, 3/21/2010, 3/17/2010, 3/16/2010, 3/10/2010, 3/3/2010, 3/1/2010—this is just a selection of the meatiest from the "On Funding Public Higher Education" tag; the entire timeline from March to May 2010 is pretty revealing of what's remained consistent [often frustratingly] in New York State budget politics and processes!).

Why am I in the pro-public funding camp?  Many reasons!

• I believe the pendulum has swung way too far, both conceptually and fiscally, toward the flawed notion that the value of a college degree should be measured solely in terms of the lifetime earnings boost it provides the degree holder over the average high school graduate, and that therefore students and families should bear an ever-increasing share of the cost of operating public colleges and universities.  When the total annual price of attending SUNY Fredonia approaches $25K and when 91% of Fredonia's Class of 2019 graduated with student debt, something is out of whack!
• I believe that public higher education is a public good.  While I don't believe every public higher ed sector or degree program should be free, I do believe students at public colleges and universities and their families should be contributing on average approximately a third of their institution's operating costs, in line with the proportion of "personal monetary benefit of a college degree" to its "overall value" (Christopher Newfield, The Great Mistake, pg. 71):

According to higher education scholars Walter McMahon and Christopher Newfield, decision-makers consistently underestimate higher education’s private non-market goods (on a degree holder’s health; longevity; happiness; human capital; working conditions; job type and benefits; control over consumption, savings, and family size; and children’s education and cognitive development), indirect private market benefits, nonmarket private benefits (both direct and indirect), and social goods (both direct and indirect), leading to an overemphasis on the “personal monetary benefit of a college degree,” although this is really “only about one-third” of its “overall value.” (paraphrasing and quoting Newfield, pg. 71; emphasis added)

• I believe in funding public higher education like the public good it is, not just because it is the right thing to do or because it advances fairness and equity, but also because it gets results.  The State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO) has also studied the impacts of state higher education appropriations and financial aid and I highly recommend their report, which found "clear evidence that increased financial investments—specifically, increased state general operating and student financial aid—are directly tied to student success in higher education" (pg. 5).  So, too, have the authors of Metrics That Matter, who argue persuasively that "the quality of a student's education has very little to do with what percentage of applicants their college rejected and a lot more to do with how much money that college spends on each of its students," concluding that "serious investments" in instruction and student services "help students learn, advance, and graduate" (pg. 47, 50).
• I believe the oft-mentioned "demographic cliff" militates against broad-based tuition increases.  While ECON 101-style supply and demand arguments are no doubt oversimplified, a shrinking pool of new high school graduates who are choosing college at a lower rate than previous cohorts (the SUNY Report is admirably precise about these factors; cf. pp. 36-37 in particular) means three things: (1) there is lower overall demand for higher education, which (2) leads to a tuition discounting war among institutions that are (3) competing more intensely to convince these in-demand students to attend their institution.  In this situation, which is projected to last more than a decade, public higher ed is not in a strong position to raise prices across the board.
• In fact, lowering prices does not just make economic sense, it also may help change the narrative about higher education being too expensive, not providing enough of a return on investment, failing in its traditional role of providing pathways to the middle class and beyond—and in so doing bring high school graduates who delayed starting college off the sidelines and back into the higher education game.  The SUNY report acknowledges this reality by identifying a large range of types of students who either have not been served well by higher education or who have not been actively enough sought after, and lays out SUNY's strategies for recruiting them (cf. pp. 31-43 and the brief overview on pg. 2 of the Executive Summary).

I'll have much more to say in later posts about the SUNY report's emphasis on increased enrollments at most SUNY campuses signaling "renewed interest and confidence in the value of our educational offerings" (Executive Summary, pg. 1) and on the foundational claim that "Our rapidly changing economy and society require institutions of higher education to be nimbler than ever to meet student demand, deliver on the promise of upward mobility, and invest students with the broad knowledge and skills to be leaders, innovators, problem-solvers, and citizens" (Report, pg. 44).  But I want to advance another argument for the pro-public funding camp that builds on what United University Professions (UUP) and SUNY University Faculty Senate (UFS) have been advocating for in their own ways.  Unlike SUNY's forward-looking argument, this one is historical, and it will be very familiar to people who have been reading the Fredonia University Senate's October 2023 and November 2023 State Fiscal Year 2025 (SFY25) resolutions or my October 2023 message to Senators.

Here are the corrected figures from the November resolution.  The blue line represents Fredonia's change in enrollment since Fall 2007; the green line represents the change direct state aid since SFY08, adjusted for inflation (many thanks to Rob Deemer, Fredonia University Senate's Governance Officer and University Faculty Senator, for making these infographics):

There is simply no getting around the fact that the decisions of previous governors undermined Fredonia's financial sustainability.  Even as Fredonia enrollments were increasing during the Great Recession, New York State was responding to the federal government's decision to transfer federal deficits down to the states by deeply cutting real-dollar direct operating aid.  UUP has shown these cuts totaled on the order of $8B over a similar time period across the entire SUNY system.  At Fredonia, these cuts were so deep that even as Fredonia's enrollments began falling from their Fall 2011 peak, it took until SFY17 for the accumulated drop in real-dollar direct state aid to exceed the accumulated enrollment-adjusted real-dollar direct state aid shortfall.  Even in the current fiscal year, after two years of investments by Governor Hochul and the state legislature, the decline in real-dollar direct state aid remains greater than the decline in enrollment at Fredonia.  Whether you focus on the accumulated real-dollar shortfall of $167.1M or the accumulated enrollment-adjusted real-dollar shortfall of $119.8M or the fact that real-dollar direct state aid fell below 60% of its SFY08 state direct aid real-dollar allocation for the first time in SFY12, below 55% for the first time in SFY19, below 50% for the first time in SFY22, and remained below 55% in SFY24, even after historic investments by Governor Hochul, the only conclusion to be drawn is that multiple Democratic Party governors have contributed at least as much to digging Fredonia's budget hole as declining enrollments.  In fact, by making Fredonia more tuition dependent each year, these governors have made Fredonia more vulnerable to those declines.  And if students really are following the money and paying attention to investments in student learning and supports, then you could even build a strong case that New York State's disinvestments in Fredonia have helped cause our declines in enrollment.

So what is New York State going to do to redress these damages to Fredonia?  Here's where the Fredonia University Senate and SUNY UFS answer diverges slightly from the UUP answer, and where my answer is different from both.

UUP points to recent actions of the SUNY Board of Trustees and SUNY System Administration touted in the SUNY Report (pg. 23) as the key source of the financial problems facing nearly 20 SUNY campuses (cf. examples from October 2023, November 2023, December 2023, and December 2023).  To understand why there is a lot of justice to these claims, consider this infographic (which Governance Officer and University Faculty Senator Deemer also put together):

• Why weren't those four large green lines reduced slightly and redistributed to campuses in need?
• Why weren't administrators at the Big 4 SUNY campuses charged with cutting costs of administration so that they could continue to invest in new faculty hires with slightly reduced direct state aid (3% like everyone else) than they would have received had the 6% differential tuition proposal by Governor Hochul ended up in the SFY24 Enacted Budget?
• Why was the same old funding formula used to disburse the vast majority of direct state aid to campuses, even as a new formula was developed to ensure that funds were targeted to students in need for a much smaller pot of money devoted to supporting students with disabilities, addressing student mental health and food insecurity, and providing students with research and internship opportunities?

When I emailed similar questions to Merryl Tisch, the chair of the SUNY Board of Trustees, Chancellor King, and SUNY Acting Chief Financial Officer Josh Sager on October 26, 2023, I never received a reply.  Here are a few highlights from that email:

• If the SUNY UFS resolution asking System to conduct a cost of administration study had been an urgent priority and action had been taken to reduce M[anagement]/C[onfidential] costs equitably and strategically across the system, the savings in operations at larger campuses could have easily obviated the need for any conversion of planned tuition increases to direct state aid increases at University Centers, as less M/C spending (when justified) could have funded full-time faculty hiring, particularly when already existing tuition and funding disparities between larger and smaller campuses are taken into account.
  [A]nother effect of the 3%/6% compounded direct state aid disparity is the impact on public opinion, attitudes, and confidence: parents and prospective students know SUNY schools like UB are hiring and growing while they believe SUNY schools like Potsdam are cutting and shrinking (just look at the incoherent coverage of the latest Potsdam news here). This investment disparity can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, driving more applications and admissions to University Centers and away from smaller SUNY schools, particularly as news spreads of others facing Potsdam-like situations. The example of Emporia State shows how hard it is to shake these kinds of perceptions, at least in the short run.
• Couple all this with the University Center endowment match and University Centers are and will be even better positioned to lower the net cost of attendance for students who have also been accepted to wealthy private institutions that are engaged in deep tuition discounting (a good thing), but this strategic decision has the knock-on effect of, say, making the net cost of attendance at Fredonia and Buffalo State higher than at UB for many qualifying students accepted to all three this year.  This, too, is precisely backwards.  Every SUNY institution should be at or close to the lowest net cost of attendance for their institutional type.

In response to the lack of response to my email, Fredonia University Senate passed an augmented and corrected SUNY state funding allocation formula resolution a little over a week later, and on November 16, 2023, I sent the following transmittal email and letter:

Dear Chairperson Tisch, Chancellor King, Acting Chief Financial Officer Sager, and President Landa,

I'm sharing the google doc link to, and attaching a pdf of, the transmittal letter for four recent resolutions from the Fredonia University Senate:

• our corrected and augmented November 2023 New York State Fiscal Year 2025 Executive Budget Resolution (which includes an endorsement of the October 2023 SUNY UFS Resolution 195-02-1)
• our October 2023 SUNY Cost of Attendance and State Financial Aid Resolution
• our November 2023 corrected and augmented SUNY State Funding Allocation Formula Resolution, and
• our October 2023 Public Good Index Resolution.

I'm hopeful that there is still time to assemble the teams called for in the last three resolutions and to continue working with Governor Hochul and her staff on the goals of the SFY25 Executive Budget resolutions.

To his credit, Chancellor King indirectly responded to many of these questions and critiques at the UFS Fall 2023 Plenary at SUNY Geneseo in mid-October 2023, on the Capitol Pressroom at the end of October 2023, in the SUNY state budget request from early December 2023, and in the January 2024 SUNY report that's been the subject of these three blog posts, among other places.  And there is a good deal of justice in his responses.

• Chancellor King is right that one-time "bailouts" will not solve the structural deficits facing many SUNY campuses, that a mix of methods is needed to get all SUNY campuses on firm financial ground (yet I still agree with UUP President Kowal that openly guaranteeing bridge funding for a period of time while those methods are developed and implemented would provide a vote of confidence in those campuses while allowing for more orderly, strategic, planful action).
• Chancellor King is right that there is no solution that doesn't involve ensuring that any enrollment declines are stemmed at every SUNY campus (and nobody disagrees with this!) and that a targeted, stable enrollment range is arrived at on every SUNY campus (and where to set the targets, how wide a range is acceptable, and how growth is to be achieved are all hot topics).
• Chancellor King is right to put program discontinuances and tuition increases on the table (and while Fredonia faculty and students are grateful that UUP has pledged to fight both—and are taking the initiative on those fights themselves—Fredonia University Senate Executive Committee has been working with the Fredonia administration to develop a Program Deactivation Program Review [PDRP] timeline and I'll have more to say about the SUNY report's observation that "Reasonable, predictable, ongoing increase[s] in resources could be achieved through (1) modest, differential tuition increases; and/or (2) modest, consistent increases in annual state operating aid" [Executive Summary, pg. 3] after a tiny digression/preview of future posts here).

Before I connect all these debates with the question of increasing SUNY revenues, then, let me quote here a key paragraph from a special message I sent to Senators on December 21, 2023 regarding one key milestone in fleshing out President Kolison's Roadmap to Financial Sustainability:

What has Executive Committee been trying to achieve over the past 16 days in particular? We have been working hard and moving ahead with all deliberative speed to protect the integrity of Fredonia’s shared governance system, follow approved processes, and, when necessary, establish processes that similarly incorporate respect for academic freedom, peer review, and the exercise of professional expertise, judgment, and responsibilities. In developing the PDRP timeline, Executive Committee and Cabinet sought to maximize opportunities for departmental, standing committee, Senate, and campus engagement with President Kolison’s curricular recommendations—to set aside sufficient time at each stage of the process for observation, reflection, analysis, and input-gathering, so as to ensure, as I put it on December 6, that the campus community has “considered every possible angle on” and “vetted every promising alternative to” degree program deactivation. But we also sought to design an orderly and expeditious process for providing input to the Cabinet on real, pressing, challenging financial dilemmas. At no point in the PDRP will any governance body be taking a vote on any degree program deactivation proposal. Governance body input will be strictly limited to providing observations and analyses—never crossing the line into making a recommendation or offering advice on what has been, and remains, solely an administrative responsibility to formalize program deactivation forms, follow the PDRP, and submit them to SUNY System Administration, certifying that the appropriate and established governance process has been followed. (pg. 2)

I will be returning to the reasons why Executive Committee has taken this tack in a later post. But the bottom line for this post is that at this point it's extremely unclear what effect on the bottom line any program deactivations or other outcomes from the PDRP might have. Certainly effects will take time to be realized, whether they are savings, efficiencies from redeploying faculty and transforming curricula, or enrollment growth that might come from redesigning programs instead of deactivating them. The PDRP itself is only one small part of the Roadmap to Financial Sustainability, which is one part of the financial sustainability and stewardship goals of Fredonia's overall strategic plan. There is much work to be done at Fredonia to flesh out, synchronize, and coordinate all the components this spring semester. The timing of Governor Hochul's State of the State Address and release of the Executive Budget could not be better, in this sense, as both will help all of us at Fredonia understand what to expect going forward from New York State, and figure out what actions need to be taken to influence the final shape of the State Fiscal Year 2025 (SFY25) Enacted Budget come April 2024.

So to sum up the points I've been making about increasing revenues for public higher education in New York State, Governor Hochul and the New York State Legislature have only so many levers to pull when it comes to funding SUNY and CUNY.  Raising tuition, as I've argued, is a political and economic non-starter:  when demand goes down, businesses lower prices; when the supply of students goes down, expect the ongoing tuition discounting arms race only to heat up further.  If New York State and SUNY leadership don’t commit to increasing direct state aid and indirect state operating aid significantly, but instead keep digging SUNY institutions ever-deeper into their real-dollar budget holes of the past 17 years, it will become even more difficult for those institutions to climb out of those holes by growing their enrollments.  If Governor Hochul’s SFY25 Executive Budget proposal does not extend a ladder to campuses like SUNY Fredonia, if she does not throw away her predecessors’ shovel, then legitimate questions will be raised about whether she is digging the graves of at least some SUNY campuses.  Is that the legacy she wants to take into her next election?

For these reasons, I am fairly and increasingly confident that Governor Hochul's Executive Budget will include the following SUNY proposals, as they overlap significantly with core UUP and UFS priorities. If anything, UUP and UFS will push the New York State Legislature to build on this foundation and make larger commitments to increasing direct state aid and indirect state financial aid over time. Here's a selection of proposals from the closing pages of the SUNY report (pp. 66-71) that I think have an strong chance of being incorporated into Governor Hochul's SFY25 Executive Budget, with rationales from SUNY System Administration:

• Maintain Investment in Four-Year Campus Operating Aid Increases: $54.0M

The 2023-24 Enacted State Budget Financial Plan, as well as its Mid-Year Update, includes additional incremental direct operating aid to SUNY’s State-operated campuses and statutory colleges of $54.0M in each of both 2024-25 and 2025-26, a total incremental add of $108.0M from 2023-24 Enacted levels. These monies will serve to advance student success and support vital investments in support of student completion and high-demand program offerings. It is anticipated that funds would be allocated consistent with the Executive’s 2023-24 initial proposal for differentiated tuition increases supporting all State-operated campuses as well as continued mitigation of the cost of student fees to compensated graduate student workers.

• Provide Support for State-Negotiated Collective Bargaining Agreement Implementation: $86.5M

In recognition of the vital work of faculty and professional staff across SUNY’s State-operated campuses, SUNY has requested support from the State to financially aid in the implementation of the new contract. In 2024-25, the agreed-upon 3% across-the-board salary increase and increase in adjunct minimum compensation together total approximately $86.5M.

• Maintain the 100% Community College Funding Floor: Avoidance of $85 Million in Lost Direct State Tax Support

The 2023-24 Enacted State Budget continued the maintenance of a 100% “Funding Floor” for the 30 community colleges operating under the program of the State University of New York, putting these unique local/state entities on the same financial footing as all institutions of postsecondary education in New York State. The floor, if included in the 2024-25 Executive Budget as reflected in the Mid-Year State Financial Plan, will ensure that these essential institutions avoid nearly $85M in lost direct State tax support.

• Maintain 2023-24 Investment Levels: ~$7.5M

The current State Financial Plan posits several reductions to existing programs that support distinct areas of the SUNY System, including the Educational Opportunity Program (EOP), investments in nursing programs, and the Maritime Scholarship Program. SUNY requests that these programs be maintained at 2023-24 levels, ensuring that there will not be any interruption in their offerings and support to the constituent base.

• Investment in Critical Maintenance Capital Needs: $1.0B

Necessitated by immediate asset renewal needs and a deferred maintenance backlog totaling $8.6B, increased construction costs, and planned demolitions at select campuses to reduce SUNY’s physical footprint, which will achieve operational savings and permanently reduce the deferred maintenance backlog, this request item seeks an increase from the current $550.0M in the State Financial Plan to $1.0B per annum, a $450.0M per-year increase.

• Clean Energy Implementation Fund: $100.0M

To aid in SUNY’s contributions to New York State’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLPCA) goals, SUNY is proposing the creation of a “SUNY Clean Energy Implementation Fund.” These funds, seeded by bonded State capital and supplemented by existing funds such as the Clean Energy Bond Act, state, local, and federal grants, and ultimately reimbursed to the State through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) Direct Pay benefits, would accelerate the implementation of the Clean Energy Master Plans developed at the SUNY State- operated Campuses. Funds would support through the design and construction of geothermal networks, energy efficiency retrofits, full campus electrification, and other clean energy projects.

• Community College Capital Program: ~$53.0-$196.0M

Community College sponsors must first support and provide documentation for 50% of project cost (Local Share), which then drives a 50% State match. Documentation of the local funding commitment must be provided to the Division of the Budget by mid-December each year. The current range reflects the State share driven by community college projects that have secured local sponsor support ($53.0M) as of October 12th, as well as potential projects identified but that have not yet secured local sponsor support. The likely requested State match will likely be ~$100.0M.

• Expansion of Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) Income Thresholds and Award Levels

SUNY is an extraordinary value proposition, and thanks to Governor Hochul’s leadership, 53% of full-time resident undergraduate students attend SUNY tuition-free. In addition, fewer SUNY students take on debt—and for those who do borrow, their debt is lower than their peers. Nevertheless, affordability remains a challenge for many students. The income thresholds for TAP have not been updated since the year 2000, which has significantly limited access to affordable degrees for New York State students.

• Sustainable funding for ASAP/ACE

The 2023-24 enacted budget included $75 million for the SUNY Transformation Fund as a one-year allocation. Currently, 25 SUNY campuses have elected to use their Transformation Funds to support the ASAP and ACE college completion initiatives described in the Student Success section. There is a robust body of research that supports ASAP/ACE as an evidence-based strategy validated by randomized controlled trials to increase retention and completion for students. An external evaluation led by MDRC found that involvement in the ASAP program nearly doubled graduation rates, both at CUNY and when it was replicated in Ohio. For CUNY, 22% of students not in the program earned a degree within three years, compared to 40% of the students participating in ASAP. Similarly, in Ohio, 19% of non-ASAP students earned a degree compared to 35% of ASAP students. Results from CUNY’s ongoing quasi-experimental evaluation of ASAP find participating students graduate at more than double the rate of non-ASAP students: 53% vs. 25%. SUNY has made it clear that one of the best enrollment strategies that SUNY will engage in for long-term success is increasing retention. ASAP/ACE has been demonstrated to have a strong effect on retention, and that is why to support SUNY’s long-term success, the ASAP/ACE program should be funded at a sustainable level to support student success.

• Continued TAP modernization

As noted above, expanding college affordability in New York State is important for students, families, and SUNY. The current maximum income threshold for a dependent student to receive TAP is $80,000—while the state median income for a family of four is $116,765. If TAP had kept pace with inflation since it was last updated in 2000, the current threshold would be $145,000 instead of $80,000. In addition, the situation for independent students—essentially including working adults—is even more dire: the $10,000 threshold for single independent students without dependents has never been updated since it was created in 1986, and independent students who are married with no dependents have an income threshold of $40,000. A person who makes the New York minimum wage of $15 per hour would likely have too high an income to qualify for TAP as an independent student, including the new part-time TAP for workforce credential expansion. SUNY supports the strategic, and much-needed, adjustments to these thresholds as well as increases in award levels as a pivotal tool to aid New York State students succeed in their higher education journey.

• Predictable and sustained operating support for SUNY campuses

As described in the Financial Sustainability section, SUNY’s fiscal health depends in part on additional revenue following completion of the three-year increase for State-operated campuses included in the current State Financial Plan. Two potential sources of revenue are 1) implementation of differentiated tuition increases that would maintain SUNY’s competitiveness, provide additional support to all State-operated campuses, and recognize the unique mission and costs of the University Centers; and/or 2) additional annual recurring increases in State operating funds.

• Doubling Pell grants

Pell grants help nearly 7 million low- and moderate-income students attend and complete college annually. Systemwide, about one-third of SUNY students receive a Pell grant to attend college. Increasing the maximum Pell award to $13,000 would help more students afford college, earn a degree, get a good-paying job, and achieve a brighter future.

Since I've already made the case for increased direct state aid, and the task of building on SUNY's proposals will become clearer after the State of the State Address and release of the Executive Budget, let me focus on differential tuition and expand on previous arguments I've made (including the Fredonia University Senate's October 2023 resolution) in favor of a certain version of it.  This, by the way, is where my position may diverge from UUP's, which historically has opposed creating disparities in tuition for undergraduate New York State residents.  Fredonia's University Senate's resolution attempts to address these concerns by calling for

• SUNY Board of Trustees Chairperson Merryl Tisch, SUNY Chancellor John King, SUNY Acting Chief Financial Officer Josh Sager, and SUNY University Faculty Senate President Landa [to] assemble a broad-based team that includes leaders or designees of SUNY shared governance bodies and charge it to develop a plan for incorporating a more equitable and differentiated system of tuition and fees and robust system of financial aid into SUNY’s SFY25 Executive Budget request.
• Such a team to propose a system of differential tuition that makes each SUNY campus in each sector among the most affordable public higher education options for their sector in the nation.
• Such a plan could include:
• eliminating tuition at SUNY “regional” two-year institutions and covering all costs of attendance through a combination of federal, state, and local funding and aid;
• allowing SUNY “regional” four-year institutions to eliminate or reduce non-resident tuition;
• allowing SUNY “regional” four-year institutions to set regular resident tuition and fees up to half the sum total of the maximum Pell, TAP, and Excelsior awards, SUNY “national” institutions to set them up to three-quarters that amount (up to the full amount for non-resident tuition), and SUNY “global” institutions up to the full amount (up to 1.5 times for non-resident tuition);
• requiring SUNY “national” and “global” institutions to cover at least half the ensuing difference from the “regional” institution with the highest regular resident tuition and fees within a 100-mile radius through their own sources of student financial aid.
• The team to consider proposing a further tuition differentiation by degree program that:
• increases direct state aid and/or indirect state financial aid for degree programs that lead to socially beneficial, understaffed professions with traditionally lower starting salaries and career earnings (e.g., arts, education, mental health counseling, nursing, social work), so that their net price is lower than the regular resident tuition rate at any SUNY four-year institution;
• utilizes SUNY and other data (such as from Georgetown’s Center on Education and the Workforce) to identify high-return-on-individual-investment, high-demand, and/or high-cost degree programs for which their resident tuition may be set higher than the regular resident tuition rate at any SUNY four-year institution in their sector (with a maximum per sector set by System Administration).
• The team to consider proposing:
• expansions in financial aid eligibility for New Yorkers;
• increases in financial aid amounts for New Yorkers;
• extensions in the applicability of state scholarships and grants so that they may be used on any cost associated with attendance at any SUNY campus.

Keep in mind that SUNY already has differential tuition between New York State residents and non-residents, between undergraduates and graduate students, among graduate degree programs, and, if you count differences in broad-based fees, even among undergraduate residents.  SUNY's differential tuition proposal on page 61 of the report represents one possible direction Governor Hochul could go in, while leaving it up to her to decide which revenue increases should come from direct state aid and which should come from differential tuition.  My point is simply that following through on some version of the Fredonia University Senate solution—lowering net costs of attendance for most students and only increasing net costs for students with the ability to pay for college without going into a significant amount of debt (or any at all)—only requires political will.  The core question is therefore political.  Will Governor Hochul commit to making New York State the national leader in college affordability?  Will she "propose a system of differential tuition that makes each SUNY campus in each sector among the most affordable public higher education options for their sector in the nation"?

Time will tell, but personally, I'm encouraged that Governor Hochul deployed "national leader" language yesterday in her unveiling of multiple proposals to improve maternal and infant health in New York.  If you watch the video, fast forward to the 8:00 mark and listen to her lead up to the point that "I want to be number one.  This is New York.  Why aren't we number one?"

So how close are we to #1 when it comes to measures of college affordability and state operating budget support?  Here's a list of where New York State ranks nationally, according to the latest figures from SHEEO, as listed in the SUNY UFS October 2023 New York State Fiscal Year 2025 Executive Budget resolution (some of which are presented in a different format in this spreadsheet):

• #40 in appropriations for public and private higher education per $1K of personal income in 2022 ($3.96, down from a peak of $5.70 in 2008 and a peak rank of #32 in 2015)
• #22 in appropriations for public and private higher education per capita in 2022 ($300.35, down from a peak of $315.45 in 2020 and a peak rank of #16 in 2015, 2018, and 2019)
• #44 in public and private higher education allocations as a percentage of state revenue in fiscal year 2019 (3.5% when the national average was 5.5% and Texas was 6.8%, California and Illinois were 6.4%, and Florida was 6.2%)
• #30 in public and private higher education allocations per $1K of personal income in fiscal year 2019 ($4.89 in constant 2020 dollars, compared to California at $6.90, Illinois at $6.86, and Texas at $6.15)
• #12 in public and private higher education allocations per capita in fiscal year 2019 ($361 in constant 2020 dollars, compared to California at $493 and Illinois at $432)
• #6 in public higher education allocations per full-time equivalent student in fiscal year 2021 ($12,428, compared to Illinois at $18,752)
• #10 in state financial aid per public full-time equivalent student in fiscal year 2021 ($1,231, compared to Florida at $1,479)
• #38 [13th-lowest] in net tuition revenue per public full-time equivalent student in fiscal year 2021 ($5,763, compared to Florida at $2,301 and Texas at $5,567)
• #41 [10th-lowest] in net student share of public higher education revenues in fiscal year 2021 (31.7%, compared to California at 20.4% [3rd-lowest] and Florida at 21.7% [4th-lowest])
• #29 in state support (mostly actual tax revenues and lottery profits) in constant adjusted dollars for operating expenses of public higher education per $1K of personal income in fiscal year 2020 ($4.89, compared to a peak of $7.73 in 1980 and a peak rank of #28 in 2018 and 2019)
• #13 in state support (mostly actual tax revenues and lottery profits) in constant adjusted dollars for operating expenses of public higher education per capita in fiscal year 2020 ($369, compared to a peak of $371in 2019 and a peak rank of #11 in 2018)
• #12 in state support (mostly actual tax revenues and lottery profits) in constant adjusted dollars for operating expenses of public higher education per full-time equivalent student in fiscal year 2021 ($11,735, compared to a peak of $12,014 in 2020 and a peak rank of #6 in 2016, 2018, and 2019)
• #44 in state support (mostly actual tax revenues and lottery profits) in constant adjusted dollars for operating expenses of public higher education as share of total state revenues in fiscal year 2019 (3.5%, compared to a peak of 5.7% in 1980 and tied for peak rank with many prior years)
• #10 in net tuition revenue as a percentage of total state revenue in fiscal year 2021 (31.7%, compared to a valley of 19.6% in 1980 and a peak rank of #8 in 2018 and 2019)
• #9 in state financial aid per public full-time equivalent student in fiscal year 2021 ($1,703, compared to a peak of $2.005 in 2010 and a peak rank of #1 in 2001)

These metrics are the tip of the iceberg.  SUNY UFS proposed a much larger set of metrics in October 2022 and the Fredonia University Senate called on SUNY to develop a "public good index" in October 2023.  There is so much that SUNY System Administration and the SUNY Board of Trustees could be doing to better track inputs and outputs, real revenues and real costs—but even with the data we have at hand, it's clear that New York State is not close to becoming the national leader in college affordability or in sustainably and equitably supporting and advancing the mission of public higher education.

We're only days away from finding out how rapidly Governor Hochul wants to advance every SUNY sector and every SUNY campus in this direction.  How ambitious does she want to be in advancing her 2022 "plans to revitalize the State University of New York system and make it the best statewide system of public higher education in our nation"?

On Increasing SUNY Revenues, Part 2

Picking up where I left off last night, I could go on for many more pages about what a rhetorically effective political document the SUNY Report on Long-Term Enrollment and Financial Sustainability is.  In addition to what I already noted, I would point to the report's yoking large-scale SUNY research endeavors to state economic development goals, positioning SUNY to leapfrog others in those emergent fields and industries, framing SUNY as the workforce development answer to needs in "high-demand sectors," and the sheer poetry of

SUNY’s commitment to excellence in operational and fiscal stewardship on behalf of the students and taxpayers we serve anchors SUNY’s success and enables us to provide extraordinary value. Fiscal sustainability requires both ongoing revenue increases and continuous attention to operational efficiency, along with a commitment to the difficult decisions necessary to ensure financial health. (Executive Summary, pg. 2)

as key examples, among many, of how thoughtfully and persuasively the report is directed toward and customized for its primary audiences:  Governor Hochul and the New York State Legislature.

Not being part of those audiences, however, I tend to distrust my judgments about the report's rhetorical and political effectiveness, and not just because the ripple effects of its release last Friday are only just beginning to be felt.  I fully admit I have a lot to learn from Chancellor King—who after all has risen to the highest level of state and federal education agency leadership before winning a national search to become SUNY's next leader—when it comes to navigating relationships with elected officials.

So instead of giving more and more reasons why the report is certainly A-range material, I'll turn to analyzing it as an example of negotiating the constraints and parameters on political speech in New York State's political environment as we enter 2024.  Of course, as a campus governance leader, I have a lot more freedom of speech than a university president or system chancellor, and I haven't been shy about using it.  But before exercising it, there's a lot to be said for close reading the report's ambiguities, gaps, and other modes of drawing readers in, making them active participants in the construction of its meaning, and deftly wielding the power of suggestion.

Let's start with a simple question:  why did it take until page 51 of the report for teacher education to be featured?

On the projected growth in education, it is important to note that SUNY is the state’s largest educator preparation provider and that these programs are vital both to SUNY and to the success of New York’s K-12 public education system. (Report, pg. 51, emphasis added)

Or rather, first featured as a general topic, rather than tied to a specific SUNY campus?

The UB Teacher Residency Program seeks to increase the ranks, diversity, and retention of teachers in Buffalo amid a looming teacher shortage, increasing the university’s ties to BPS and improving student outcomes. (Report, pg. 37, emphasis added)

Or rather, why did only one former "normal" school—a campus originally founded with teacher education as its core mission, a campus listed in the "University Colleges" or "Comprehensives" sector by SUNY and UFS—make it into the report specifically regarding its teacher education mission, and then only with respect to a privately-funded microcredential?

SUNY New Paltz’s Science of Reading Center of Excellence has also launched SUNY’s first-ever science of reading fundamentals microcredential. This fully online, self-paced microcredential supports New York State teachers in enhancing literacy instruction. A generous scholarship funded by philanthropy is making the microcredential available to the first 5,000 participants for just $50 per educator. (Report, pg. 21)

One of the reasons, it seems to me this afternoon after watching the livestream from Watervliet Elementary School of Governor Hochul's second preview of next Tuesday's State of the State Address, is that a proposal to invest $10M in new funding to advance the science of reading through SUNY/CUNY microcredentials will be part of the Executive Budget for State Fiscal Year 2025.  Thus, while the SUNY report is certainly politically canny, I can't help but be worried that its emphasis on new initiatives in other areas will put the everyday work of meeting the national and statewide teacher shortage through the teaching and learning and clinical experiences gained in elementary and adolescence education programs at places like my own home campus of SUNY Fredonia on the back burner—or worse, left out in the cold. 

These rhetorical roads not taken trouble me, as they are likely to have financial implications.  Yesterday, for instance, Governor Hochul's first proposal on consumer protection and affordability could have—and, I would argue, should have—included college affordability (hello, Fredonia University Senate resolution and UFS resolution!) and protection from for-profit higher ed (hello, Tressie McMillan Cottom's 2017 classic, Lower Ed:  The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy!) as central initiatives in her agenda.  IF they are actually part of her agenda.  And that, now, is apparently a big if.

Which leads me right back to the central dilemma that the SUNY report so masterfully and confidently and diplomatically tiptoed around:  when the political reflex of so many in your primary audience is to raise tuition for public higher ed students to offset or at least mitigate real-dollar cuts to direct state aid, when this pattern has held in New York State for decades, when many states are reporting downturns in tax receipts, when the prospect of a "soft landing" (the Fed taming inflation without triggering a recession)  is still in doubt, when the New York State Budget Director and Comptroller have been faithfully playing their fiscally conservative roles (alongside the Citizens Budget Commission) and the joint Quick Start Report has continued in that vein, closing with "The Governor will propose a FY 2025 Executive Budget by January 16, 2024, that will include a plan to provide for balanced General Fund operations on a cash basis in FY 2025" (pg. 14)—when all that history and context shapes how the SUNY report will be received, interpreted, and responded to—how to help the very decision-makers who have put SUNY on a path toward a billion-dollar operating deficit by 2034 understand the choices facing them in State Fiscal Year 2025?  How to both suggest that something has to give and defer to the very Governor whose constitutionally-mandated role in the state budget process is to be the fiscal conservative in the room at the end game of budget negotiations?

Here are some hints:

• "Thanks to the generosity of the State, and as shown on the following charts, SUNY State-operated campuses have relatively low tuition and fees compared to other states. This reinforces SUNY’s incredible value and creates space for SUNY to enact moderate increases in tuition while remaining extremely competitive with other states" (Report, pg. 57).
• "As the following chart shows, System-wide expenditures are projected to grow to $6.9 billion by 2033-34, accounting for both collective bargaining agreements and cost controls intended to promote efficiency. With no investment in resources beyond the committed increases in the State’s current financial plan, SUNY would face a $1.1 billion annual shortfall at the end of this period. With reasonable, predictable, ongoing increases in resources, SUNY would instead face an $89.1 million annual shortfall by the end of this period" (Report, pg. 60).
• "Without reasonable, predictable, and reliable increases in resources over the next decade, SUNY will fail to achieve operational sustainability and be unable to meet the needs of New York State’s students, families, and employers. While the above model uses tuition increases to create projections, there are effectively two revenue sources that can serve this vital role: One is sustained and predictable tuition and fee increases, and the other is continued increases in Direct State Tax Support" (Report, pg. 61).

I'll pick this up in another post tomorrow!

Update (1/6/2024)

Please see Part 3.