State Lawmakers Draft New Tuition Plan For SUNY And CUNY

By: Erin Billups

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A new plan will impact how SUNY and CUNY tuition can be increased and accessed by the state. NY1’s Erin Billups filed the following report.

Lawmakers are fine-tuning a plan released last week to raise SUNY tuition annually by five and a half percent over five years. The plan will now include CUNY schools as well.

“CUNY has for some time indicated that it too wanted to have some sort of rational tuition plan,” said Manhattan Assemblywoman Deborah Glick, who also serves as the Assembly's higher education committee chair.

Glick’s bill, introduced last Thursday, would allow schools to increase tuition by $200 the first year and $150 the following two.

The plan would also prevent the state from taking money from the universities to the state’s general fund when times get tough.

“It’s segregated into a specific fund so that the operating aid from the state and the tuition dollars go into a fund that cannot be impounded or transferred, because that’s been the concern,” said Glick.

Lawmakers say Governor Andrew Cuomo promised he would not sweep any more funds from CUNY and SUNY schools during his tenure, but Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said that’s not enough of an assurance.

“The only way there’s going to be a deal is there’s going to be a commitment and a writing that it’s not going to happen,” said Silver.

In an effort to compromise, a similar Senate bill introduced Monday prevents the state from taking money from SUNY and CUNY. Such a debit would be allowed only when personal income tax receipts drop from the year before.

“We are saying that the students are making an investment, but we want the state to make an investment and not pull back,” said Suffolk State Senator Ken LaValle.

The Senate’s tuition plan will allow slightly higher increases over a four-year period and would let colleges increase tuition for out-of-state students by 10 to 15 percent.

The governor was expected to release his own plan Wednesday. A Cuomo spokesman said the bill will be released very shortly.

“We’ll just try to reconcile the differences between the three approaches,” said LaValle.

Lawmakers expect they will reach an agreement on a tuition hike plan by the end of session later this month.