Just ask any store owner along Main Street New York and you’ll hear the same thing: SUNY is good for business. And the community. And the economy.
That’s why UUP is urging the governor to rethink his approach to lowering the state’s deficit by cutting nearly $150 million from SUNY and threatening further cuts down the road. The union’s argument is simple: SUNY is the solution to what ails the state’s economy.
“It is unwise to slash funding from a system that produces much more revenue than the amount the state invests,” said UUP President Phillip Smith. “According to SUNY officials, for every dollar in state support SUNY receives, eight dollars is returned to local economies. Imagine what would happen if this economic return suddenly evaporates.”
SUNY’s state-operated campuses—from Alfred to Buffalo to Plattsburgh to Stony Brook—generate billions of dollars for local economies. The economic impact of the University at Albany on the Capital Region is in excess of $3 billion annually; Stony Brook University generates more than $4.65 billion a year; and the University at Buffalo’s economic impact was $1.5 billion in 2005-2006, and is projected to reach $2.6 billion in 2020.
It’s not just the university centers that contribute to the economy. SUNY New Paltz and SUNY Cortland each generate about $275 million a year for their regional economies, while SUNY Brockport has an annual economic impact of $411.7 million. Ditto for the technology sector colleges: SUNY Alfred generates $74 million in economic activity each year, and the Canton area has witnessed a $1.44 million increase in economic impact over the last decade thanks to SUNY.
The impact SUNY has on communities is further accentuated by the amount of money campuses spend on goods and services, as well as the money spent by faculty, staff and students.
Potsdam small-business owner Jeremy Carney is well aware of the impact SUNY has on his business. In 2007, Northern Music & Video’s sales to SUNY Potsdam totaled $160,000. That figure jumped to $200,000 when sales to students were factored in. “That’s a big chunk of our revenue,” he recently told The Voice.
The University at Buffalo each year spends an average of $52 million on goods and services from Buffalo vendors and another $22.8 million from Amherst vendors. Upstate Medical generates $871.9 million in local income, including money spent by employees on housing, food, clothing and taxes, as well as visitor spending and student apartments.
Partnerships in peril
Also in jeopardy are the resources the University offers to local businesses and other partners in education. For example, since 1984, Binghamton University’s Small Business Development Center
(SBDC) has assisted more than 9,260 clients and helped to raise more than $98 million in private and public funding for their businesses, helping to create or save more than 6,800 jobs across the Southern Tier.
The story is the same everywhere. SUNY Brockport’s SBDC has provided free business consulting services to some 13,000 local businesses, helping to invest nearly $95 million in the area’s economy and create 3,000 jobs since 1987; the North Country SBDC has worked with 5,765 businesses, helping them invest nearly $52 million in the area’s economy to create and/or save 2,076 jobs since 1984; and Buffalo State’s SBDC has worked with 12,654 businesses, helping them invest $105 million in the area’s economy.
“The state’s elected leaders need to rethink these cuts to SUNY and approach state support to the University as an investment in the future economic health of the state, rather than as a drain on the state’s finances,” Smith wrote in a recent op-ed article for the Albany-area Times Union. “The state ought to build its way out of this crisis, not cut its way out.”
— Karen L. Mattison