Hard work pays off: Advocacy takes sting out of NYSUNY 2020

In the closing hours of the legislative session in late June, the Legislature approved a watered-down version of NYSUNY 2020, notable to UUP for what it did not contain: no differential tuition, no public/private partnerships, no sale or lease of campus properties.

The original proposal—promoted under the guise of an economic development package—would have allowed differential tuition rates at SUNY’s four University Centers in Albany, Binghamton, Buffalo and Stony Brook, as well as the establishment of public/private partnerships.

What the legislation did include was maintenance of effort language requiring that state support for SUNY cannot be cut from the previous year’s level. That precludes future budget cuts for SUNY, although that provision could be disregarded if the governor declares a fiscal emergency. The new law also allows an annual $300 undergraduate tuition increase in each of the next five years. UUP earlier declared its support of a rational tuition program in principle.

How we got there

So how did UUP avert what would have been a disaster for both SUNY and the union? UUP mobilized its resources as the original NYSUNY 2020 plan surfaced, including using the media to deliver its advocacy message.

The NYSUNY 2020 plan proposed by the University at Buffalo called for an annual tuition increase of 8 percent to help fund some of the construction costs associated with the relocation of its medical school.

“By seeking tuition and fee increases to implement their plans, UB administrators have made it clear that buildings are more important to them than students,” UUP President Phil Smith said in a news release that fired the first salvo against the plan. He stressed that the NYSUNY 2020 proposals advanced by both the Buffalo and Stony Brook campuses would severely restrict student access by sharply boosting tuition.

Additionally, UUP chapter presidents and members from UAlbany, Cortland, Potsdam, Plattsburgh and Canton helped spread the union’s message to the public through letters to the editor printed in their respective local newspapers. The letters asked state lawmakers to vote against NYSUNY 2020 and in favor of extending the millionaire’s tax, so that part of the revenue could be used to restore budget cuts to SUNY.

“Potsdam and SUNY’s other four-year comprehensive colleges would be harmed by this proposal (NYSUNY 2020),” Potsdam Chapter President Laura Rhoads wrote in her letter that appeared in the Watertown Daily Times. “Once state lawmakers saw that SUNY had another revenue source via differential tuition, they would probably channel state dollars away from SUNY.”

Other letters from UUP leaders appeared in daily newspapers in Albany, Plattsburgh, Ithaca and Cortland, including one from Greta Petry of UAlbany, who shared her personal experience with SUNY.

“My sister and I both studied humanities at Oswego State. My two brothers wanted to be engineers,” she wrote in her letter to the Albany Times Union. “None of us had money for college. My two brothers went to Stony Brook, a university center, for the same tuition Oswego State charged. SUNY leveled the playing field. They are both engineers.

“If differential tuition existed today, my brothers would have been denied access to Stony Brook and to their careers.”

UUP members also sent nearly 1,200 letters, and nearly 2,000 signed an online petition via the union’s website and its advocacy micro-site (www.savesuny.org), urging lawmakers to reject NYSUNY 2020.

“Tuition increases should benefit only students, not the private partners of UB and Stony Brook or the state,” the online letter read. “If the state truly believes that the UB and Stony Brook plans provide real economic benefit, then the state—not the students—should pay.”

Advocacy days added

UUP stepped up its legislative outreach, scheduling a pair of advocacy days in Albany late in the session, including one June 14 just as lawmakers were about to vote on NYSUNY 2020.

“We’re concerned about student accessibility. NYSUNY 2020 is an attempt to deconstruct SUNY,” Oneonta Chapter President Bill Simons said during one of the legislative visits. “Tuition dollars must be kept for students and not used for construction,” added UAlbany’s Marty Manjak.

Overall, 124 UUPers visited the offices of all but three of the Legislature’s 210 members, holding 578 meetings during eight advocacy days over the course of the legislative session.

The passage of the scaled-back NYSUNY 2020 legislation proved that UUP’s campaign had achieved its short-term goal.

“This legislation should demonstrate to all of us that advocacy works,” Smith said. “The bill does not reflect provisions that UUP opposed since the first UB 2020 legislation was introduced several years ago.”

This victory does not mean the union can let down its guard.

As The Voice went to press, UAlbany and Binghamton presented their NYSUNY 2020 plans.

Binghamton is proposing to tap some of its reserve funds—money derived from student services—to help pay for construction of a health and natural sciences building.

“These reserve funds should be used to directly benefit students and not for building construction, which should remain a responsibility of the state to fund,” Smith said. “UUP?will be closely monitoring the situation.”

Financial aid concerns remain

Even though lawmakers listened to union members and rejected differential tuition, UUP has concerns about the annual tuition increase in place for the next five years. The union had asked that any rational tuition plan include an increase in the maximum Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) award to reduce the impact on lower- and middle-income families. The legislation provides that students who currently have a portion of their tuition covered by TAP will continue to pay the same percentage share of their tuition. But the additional funds will not come from the state through TAP, but from tuition revenue collected by SUNY.

“This arrangement reduces the amount of tuition funds available to teach students and hire faculty,” Smith said. “Plus it unfairly places the burden on students and families who are able to pay the cost of tuition for those who can’t afford it.” Smith declared that the state is responsible to cover financial aid and should do so by increasing TAP awards.

“The state should not be able to walk away from its responsibility to fund TAP,” he said.

The good and the bad

Lawmakers also approved a bill making same-sex marriage legal in New York state, something UUP has long advocated.

Still looming is the governor’s proposal for a new Tier VI pension retirement system; it has not yet come up for a vote. UUP opposes and will continue to fight the Tier VI proposal, which would reduce benefits for future public employees.

“We know advocacy works,” Smith said. “And UUP?will keep up the fight to ensure that SUNY remains a premier system for students and our members who work there.”

— Donald Feldstein

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