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New York’s public college system bucks trend, keeps prices steady
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Pretty soon the best deal in New York may not be a hot dog or the Staten Island ferry, but a college degree.
Bucking a national trend, the state’s public college system isn’t jacking up tuition this fall and hasn’t since 1995. At a time when a dragging economy has state legislatures across the country pumping up tuitions, and with inflation still running at less than 3 percent annually, the New York State Assembly hasn’t touched them.
“I don’t feel any pressure from anyone to raise tuition,” said Assemblyman Edward Sullivan (D-Manhattan), chairman of the state assembly’s Higher Education Committee. “It’s already too high — in the heyday of City University there was no tuition. I wouldn’t be at all embarrassed if there were not any tuition.”
Meanwhile, New Jersey’s Rutgers is raising tuition 5 percent for 2001-2002. The University of Tennessee is increasing costs 14 percent. Students at Purdue will pay 7.5 percent more. In Minnesota, fees are up 13 percent and in Iowa, it’s 9.9 percent.
Cheryl Fields, a spokeswoman with the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges, said New York scholars are a lucky bunch.
“New York is one of the few states that has made commitment to not increasing tuitions,” said Fields. Indeed nationwide, most state university tuitions are widely outpacing inflation.
While the assembly increased tuitions nearly 40 percent in the early 90s, it’s since fallen behind most systems. New York residents at City University of New York pay $3,200 a year. State University of New York students pay $3,500.
Both tuitions are below Rutgers, which charges $6,200 for undergraduates, Connecticut costs $4,300, and at University of Massachusetts, students pay $5,200. Students in Vermont shell out $8,000 for instate students and University of Michigan charges $7,000. All these figures exclude room and board charges.
Tuition increases are driven by state budget shortfalls, tax cuts, higher insurance premiums and salaries. Also demographics — currently weighed toward the elderly and school age children — have made higher education an unpopular cause, according to Michael McPherson, president of Macalester College in Minnesota and co-author of The Student Aide Game.
“As long as this economic slowdown persists you are going to see a lot of pressure on higher education,” he said. “It’s unfortunate because 80 percent of all college students attend public institutions.”
Student fees at CUNY and SUNY now cover about 34 percent of the real costs. Sullivan says his committee wouldn’t even entertain a fee hike until the tuition is just paying for about 24 percent of the education.
And CUNY spokesman Michael Arena emphasized that because of recent legislation the city college system has become even cheaper for any high school graduate with a B average or better because the state will pick up half the cost.
“For $1,600 you get to study in the best city in the world,” he said.
J.K. Dineen, Knight-Ridder Newspapers