Testimony on State Financing of Higher Education in New York State

Presented to

Carl T. Hayden, Chancellor

Board of Regents

The University of the State of New York

by

William E. Scheuerman, Acting Conference Board Chair

September 13, 2000

Chancellor Hayden, distinguished members of the Board of Regents, thank you for giving the New York State Public Higher Education Conference Board the opportunity to comment on state financing of higher education in New York State. I am William E. Scheuerman, Acting Chair of the Conference Board. The Conference Board represents a wide spectrum of public higher education organizations, including the NEA-NY Community College Council, the NYSUT Council of Community Colleges, the Professional Staff Congress, Friends of CUNY, the CUNY Faculty Senate, New York State United Teachers and United University Professions, of which I am President.

Today’s discussion about higher education funding takes place at a unique moment in history. Both the City University of New York (CUNY), the nation’s largest, oldest and most visible urban university and the State University of New York (SUNY), the nation’s largest and most diverse system of rural and urban colleges, universities and health science centers, have new leadership. These new administrators have proposed or continue to propose sweeping changes in resource allocation, curriculum and programs. Indeed, these changes call into question the very identity of these vast systems. In addition, the State of New York and the City of New York, which support their respective public university systems, are enjoying record setting budget surpluses. At the same time, public recognition of the value of higher education has never been stronger. Clearly, this is an appropriate moment to reconsider the questions of how these systems are funded and why these funding arrangements are in place.

Today, a sense of history is important to understand the proposed changes for SUNY and CUNY. In fact, many of these proposals — like the CUNY Master Plan or SUNY’s RAM formula — do not acknowledge either the existence of, nor the effects of, 20 years of disinvestment in public higher education. This story of chronic underfunding is at once a familiar and tragic one, but this history is important to review before considering the future of public higher education financing in New York State.

Community Colleges

New York’s public community colleges were conceived as part of an overall strategy to meet a surging demand for higher education opportunities after World War II. In the years since, they have served to provide a bottom-line guarantee of access to higher education. In New York and across the nation, community colleges have also become vital tools in economic development. A New York State Business Council study found that 50 percent of employers surveyed had used community colleges for training and retraining, and 70 percent rated the community colleges as good or excellent. Yet community colleges have become a neglected facet of the state’s higher education system.

The original community college funding structure called for student tuition, state aid and local sponsor support to each bear one-third of college operating costs. In 1970, the funding formula was revised, increasing state support to 40 percent of costs at colleges that conducted "full opportunity programs," where access for all high school graduates and equivalency diploma holders was guaranteed. Although all community colleges have met the FOP requirements for many years, the state contribution reached the 40 percent level only once (in 1975-76). For most of the I 990s, the average state share at SUNY’ s 30 community colleges has been below the one-third level.

Due to these drastic reductions in state aid, many community colleges opted to hire increasing numbers of part-time or adjunct faculty as a means of economizing, but at the cost of the time, the energy and the dedication of their full-time faculties. At Suffolk Community College, to cite one example, adjuncts currently teach approximately 45 percent of day and evening classes. Underfunding has also led to an over-reliance on student tuition as a revenue source, and it has hindered the ability of these colleges to afford both students and faculty the opportunity to benefit from advances in instructional technology.

City University of New York

Long before the post-WW II education boom, CUNY administrators and faculty recognized the value of extending higher education to those who had been excluded because of their income, religion, race or gender. The University’s history has shown the wisdom of that commitment; not only have its graduates contributed in countless ways to public life, they have worked in partnership with faculty and staff to create new knowledge and to expand the frontiers of research.

Over the last 20 years, however, massive funding cuts have taken their toll; the conditions necessary for professional work have been allowed to deteriorate to levels that endanger the fabric of the institution. Over the last decade, state funding for CUNY declined by 68 percent and city funding was cut by 87 percent — in real dollars. Since 1976, CUNY has lost 5,000 full-time faculty lines. Today, CUNY is characterized by an overreliance on part-time faculty, a deteriorating physical infrastructure and an academic infrastructure of libraries, services and programs that are in great need of reinvestment.

Does the Master Plan proposed by the current CUNY administration address these problems? The answer is no! First, the Master Plan does not acknowledge the effects of years of underfunding. Instead, the Plan calls for the creation of a "flagship environment," which will further stratify the University rather than guaranteeing a suitable professional working environment for the entire faculty and staff. Moreover, the architects of the Master Plan assume that the State will provide the additional funding required to teach a new core curriculum, to establish a "flagship environment" and so on. But what if this funding fails to materialize? Unfortunately, the Master Plan doesn’t answer this question. Such uncertainty lends support to the Master Plan’s critics who believe it will have a disproportionate impact on the poor and disadvantaged. Lacking sufficient state and city funding, CUNY will continue down a road where its very mission of offering high quality education to those in need is in jeopardy.

State University of New York

The mission statement of the State University of New York establishes the boundaries of a unique Jeffersonian experiment: to provide the citizens of the state with "the broadest possible access" to affordable, high quality public higher education. For many years, SUNY was funded at a level that resulted in a sterling national reputation. Today, however, the SUNY state-operated campuses are plagued by many of the same problems that confront CUNY and the community colleges: chronic underfunding, the overreliance on part-time faculty, and a Board of Trustees that is more interested in seizing powers historically reserved for the faculty than in acting as stewards of the University’s future.

Currently, SUNY is an Orwellian place, where the Trustees do not advocate forcefully for increased investment in SUNY or address the chronic effects of underfunding in their internal resource allocation scheme. This lack of advocacy is most apparent in the current crisis at the SUNY health science centers, which is caused by unsound state budgetary practices. This chronic, annual budgetary shortfall of $116 million has forced at least one institution — SUNY Upstate Medical University — to freeze spending and hiring. This crisis has been allowed to fester for years, even after the Comptroller’s office called attention to these ill-advised practices. The Trustees continue to milk the hospitals by requiring them to raise the $1 16 million each year, rather than simply requesting sufficient funding from the state to meet campus needs.

The rise in part-time faculty also constitutes a significant threat to high-quality education at SUNY. In calling attention to the problems associated with part-time faculty, it should not be inferred that the Conference Board doesn’t value their hard work. In fact, part-time faculty are a vital and important part of both SUNY and CUNY. But any university dedicated to educational excellence must be built upon a foundation of committed, accountable, permanent academic and professional faculty members. Yet on the SUNY state-operated campuses, the percentage of part-time faculty has increased from 29.6 percent in 1990 to 37.7 percent in 1999-00. The student to faculty ratio also increased from 19 students per full-time faculty member in 1993-94 to 22 per full-time faculty member in 1998-99.

Community Colleges: The Conference Board calls on the Regents to urge the state to honor its pledge to provide 40 percent of funding for the cost of operating the community colleges. We also urge the Regents to support initiatives guaranteeing additional discrete funding for full-time faculty lines at all public-sector institutions until a 70 percent/30 percent ratio of full-time to part-time faculty is reached at each campus. As a matter of quality assurance, we also recommend that the Regents adopt regulations to prescribe a minimum ratio of full-time faculty in all academic divisions, as had been mandated by the state prior to 1982. Finally, we also ask the Regents to advocate for funding for instructional technology and associated professional development for the community colleges.

City University of New York: The Conference Board calls on the Regents to reject the narrow vision of the CUNY Master Plan, and instead, it must urge the state to provide sufficient funding for decent professional conditions and competitive salaries for the entire CUNY faculty and staff What CUNY needs is not more elite programs and faculty, but rather a systematic and targeted reinvestment in the academic infrastructure of the entire system. As with the community colleges, the Conference Board also recommends that the Regents adopt regulations to prescribe a minimum ratio of full-time faculty in all academic divisions, as had been mandated by the state prior to 1982.

State University of New York State Operated Campuses: To provide the high quality education required in SUNY’s mission statement, the Conference Board calls upon the Regents to help fill the University’s leadership vacuum. The Regents must urge the state to require that qualitative educational goals such as student to faculty ratios or targeted percentages of full-time faculty be added to SUNY’s mechanistic RAM formula. The Conference Board also requests that the Regents carefully monitor any proposed solutions to the crisis at the SUNY medical centers, so that these solutions do not compromise medical education at SUNY nor its important public health mission across the state.

Further, the Conference Board calls on the Regents to adopt similar regulations that specify the absolute number and teaching loads of part-time faculty at SUNY. An alternative would be to limit the full-time/part-time faculty ratio. This would return SUNY to its status prior to 1982-83, when State Education policy required, under normal circumstances, that a majority of SUNY faculty be full-time. This proposal is also consistent with the primary recommendation of a recent report by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, which advocated that a substantial proportion of the faculty should be "tenure eligible," meaning full-time.

Conclusion

According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, in 2000 many governors and state legislators supported large increases in their state higher education budgets. This was because increased funding was seen as a reliable way to increase economic development. In California, the Governor proposed "significant increases" in public college spending and a freeze on tuition. In Madison, the Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin presented what he called "the best budget in a decade, if not longer." Overall, the average one-year increase in state spending on higher education was 7.0%, over the last five years it was 5.8%. In New York, the increase was 3.0%, and over the last five years the average annual change in higher education spending was 0.0%! Simply put, other states are investing in higher education as a means to economic development, while New York is falling behind. This is the central question that confronts us today, one which will determine the future of the CUNY and SUNY systems.

Thank you for giving the Conference Board the opportunity to address these issues.