SUNY Stony Brook's bid to shine

For years, the State Legislature has raised State University of New York tuition unpredictably and sharply. Now, it's time for a plan that raises it moderately and predictably over the next five years, so that families and campuses can plan.

That will run into fierce opposition. So will an effort to get the four university centers -- Stony Brook, Buffalo, Albany and Binghamton -- extra funds to run their more expensive operations and create jobs. Both will require vigorous leadership by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.

A "rational tuition" bill -- 5.5 percent annual increases for five years, about $275 the first year -- emerged last Tuesday from the Senate Higher Education Committee. The idea is not to make it harder for students to afford SUNY, but to provide the cash infusion to make a SUNY diploma a more valuable credential.

SUNY has sustained cuts of nearly $1.5 billion in recent years. Even when the legislature has allowed a tuition increase, the budget office under previous governors has grabbed it for other purposes. (Cuomo promises he won't.) Students pay more, but they don't get to see their money used to improve their schools.

So SUNY's top priority is the tuition increase plan for the next five years. The chairman of the Higher Education Committee, Sen. Kenneth LaValle (R-Port Jefferson), who first proposed a form of it a decade ago, is on board. But his committee members only reluctantly reported the bill out. Though Cuomo supports it, getting the bill passed in the full Senate will be difficult. In the Assembly, it will be even tougher.

Legislators such as Assemb. Deborah Glick (D-Manhattan), chairwoman of the Higher Education Committee, disingenuously argue that tuition increases will narrow access to public higher education. But the lack of funding has already narrowed access -- for current students and those trying to get in.

At Stony Brook, for example, the cuts are reducing the number of admitted students: only 2,400 new students this year, compared with 2,700 last year. The cuts also forced adoption of a policy that limits the availability of courses: Students who don't do well in a course used to be able to repeat it. Now those taking courses for the first time get priority, and some students will take longer to graduate. So, what's more expensive: paying $275 extra a year for four years, or paying the full $4,970 in tuition for the extra year it takes to graduate?

Beyond rational tuition, the even dirtier word for legislators is differential tuition for the university centers. Together with the 5.5 percent increase for five years, it would mean a total 8.5 percent increase a year for seven years -- about $422 the first year. LaValle and Glick adamantly oppose it.

LaValle's looking for other ways to get Stony Brook the money it needs, such as increasing the out-of-state tuition rate. That's a sensible change, but it probably won't bring in enough money to make up for all the cuts. And too big a hike might tempt campuses to admit more out-of-state students and fewer from New York -- another form of limiting access.

Another idea was unveiled on Monday, when Cuomo appeared at a news conference with SUNY Chancellor Nancy Zimpher. It's a challenge grant, offering $35 million in capital money to each of the four centers, if they submit plans showing how they'll drive economic development. But they need more than capital funds. They also need to hire faculty. With 400 new professors, Stony Brook estimates it could create 8,000 research and other jobs.

Cuomo says that, if the centers' plans call for tuition increases, the legislature will have to approve. His bet: Once the plans show how much economic development they'll bring, lawmakers will find it tough to vote them down, even if they rely on differential tuition. But he'll have to use all of his clout to get the tuition part approved. And Assembly Democrats, instead of singing the phony no-increase chorus, will have to lean hard on Glick.

Failure to help the university centers is simply not an option. Stony Brook and Buffalo, the only SUNY schools in the elite Association of American Universities, could find themselves pushed out, if they decline. That would be a huge setback for the system's reputation.

Cuomo and Zimpher are right to emphasize SUNY as an economic engine. But the governor will have to work extra hard to get the legislature to give it the gas it needs to get going.