Underfunding Is Found for City, State Colleges; Unions Say Proposals By State Panel Not Enough

Underfunding Is Found for City, State Colleges;
Unions Say Proposals By State Panel Not Enough

By MEREDITH KOLODNER

City and State University unions last week praised the state Commission on Higher Education's stark description of the state's severely underfunded institutions, but argued that its proposals would not fix the problems detailed in the report.

BARBARA BOWEN: Some pluses and minuses. The 30-member Commission, created by Governor Spitzer in the spring, released its preliminary report Dec. 17 and concluded that both the City and State Universities of New York had "perilously lean operating budgets" and that long-term failure to invest in full-time high-quality faculty has had a "crippling effect" on the institutions.

Urges Aid, Tuition Hikes

It recommended a 5- to 5.5-percent annual increase in state funding over the next five years combined with a rise in tuition of 2 to 4 percent per year and a massive outreach campaign to private and philanthropic institutions for donations. It also advised hiring 2,000 more faculty systemwide and investing $3 billion in science research at both public and private universities.

MATTHEW GOLDSTEIN: Report embraces his idea. "We are very pleased to see for the first time a public body at this level honestly identifying the level of underfunding," said Professional Staff Congress President Barbara Bowen. "The problem is that the solution is not adequate. It doesn't live up to either the ambition of the vision or the reach of the analysis."

While emphasizing the union's excitement and gratitude about the thorough diagnosis of the funding problems, Ms. Bowen noted that the only mention of increased faculty compensation was in reference to attracting 250 eminent scholars to New York. "The report is silent about the lack of competitive salaries at CUNY and SUNY," she said. "You can't make a premiere institution with 250 well-paid people."

Senior Professors at CUNY average about $101,000, while the University of Connecticut pays more than $120,000 and the University of California at Berkeley averages more than $130,000.

Governor: Need Money

Governor Spitzer held a press conference Dec. 17 where he argued that the state needed to find the money to fund some of the recommendations, but would not commit to which ones.

GOVERNOR SPITZER: Cagey on priorities. The report's underlying assumption, echoed by the Governor, was that the state's economy had been and would continue to be harmed if it failed to invest significantly in public institutions of higher education.

The authors noted the relatively low number of full-time faculty, about 52 percent in New York versus a national average of 67 percent and more than 75 percent in Pennsylvania and Texas. But CUNY faculty members were frustrated with the proposal of 2,000 new full-time faculty at both SUNY and CUNY's senior colleges, when CUNY alone would need 4,000 faculty to match the full-time faculty numbers it had in 1975, when enrollment was about the same as it is today.

"We're happy that the Governor is paying attention to higher education," said Manfred Philipp, the chair of the United Faculty Senate at CUNY, "but we're very much disappointed with the number of faculty the commission recommends. It's less than what CUNY needs for the next five years."

CUNY Pleased

The report embraced funding ideas championed by CUNY Chancellor Matthew Goldstein, known as the "compact," which obligates a rise in state funding in exchange for more funding responsibility on the part of universities and increased student tuition. The state would commit to fund the universities' "mandatory costs," such as labor agreements and energy costs. CUNY officials had a positive response to the report.

"It is certainly a major achievement and a major step forward as we enter the budgetary process," said CUNY spokesman Michael Arena. Some faculty members expressed concern that the compact, combined with the report's proposal to allow individual universities to charge different tuitions without state approval, and the stated desire to create a "premiere research institution," would create a two-tier university system.

"You'll have top-flight colleges and programs that have higher tuitions, and they will be generally inaccessible to low-income students," said Bill Crain, a PSC activist and Professor of Psychology at City College. "If they were serious about access, they would roll back tuition."

Legislators Opposed

The two chairs of the Legislature's Higher Education Committees, Assemblywoman Deborah J. Glick (D) and Sen. Kenneth P. LaValle (R), both have stated their opposition to differential tuition, expressing unease about creating different quality standards throughout the system.

The report counters such concerns by asserting that the state Tuition Assistance Program will aid lower-income students and by pledging a commitment to financial aid for "the neediest students" who show academic aptitude. It also argues that regular tuition increases are more manageable than the intermittent and unpredictable "spikes" that have characterized the last two decades.

Mr. Arena defended the compact as leverage to get increased state funding. "In order to bring forth change in how higher education is funded," he said, "the fact that all stakeholders will be making contributions will be more convincing to the State Legislature."

SUNY union leaders said they also greatly appreciated the importance the report attaches to increased investment in the public universities, but urged the authors to go further. "[T]he state needs to fully fund - through state support - the costs of hiring the additional full-time faculty," United University Professions Acting President Frederick G. Floss said in a statement, "rather than expecting SUNY and CUNY to provide the income from anticipated enrollment growth or tuition hikes."

Way Above California

Although critical of some of the funding initiatives, Ms. Bowen welcomed the proposal to fix the funding mechanism at the community colleges. Tuition there is among the highest in the country, since students have repeatedly borne the burden when the state and localities failed to pay their share of the costs. Average tuition at SUNY's community colleges is four times that of California's, the report notes, averaging $3,074 and $721 respectively. The national average is $2,272, and the commission argues that the government should be mandated to pay its annual share.

The system's buildings and infrastructure are also in need of a massive influx of money, the report asserts. "SUNY and CUNY have suffered the negative effects of more than a decade of under-investment, with a devastating toll on their facilities," the authors state. They estimate a more-than $5 billion backlog in "critical maintenance" and outline a 10-year plan to bring the system out of disrepair.

Not Keeping Pace

Overall, the report makes the argument that while New York has decreased its funding to public education, other states have surged ahead, with their economies and job bases benefiting. They note that Berkeley takes in about $22,650 per full-time student while SUNY Binghamton gets about $12,000. About $7,800 of Berkeley's money comes from tuition and $14,800 comes from state investment, while at Binghamton the numbers are $4,100 and $7,900. The University of Connecticut gets about $7,000 from tuition and $12,600 from the state, for a total of about $19,600.

But critics say that unless the state invests more than the report urges, the playing field will never be level.

"It doesn't propose a practical way of getting there," said Mr. Philipp. "Berkeley didn't come about without a more serious amount of state support. You just can't get high-level research universities without significant amounts of money."