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Overcrowded and Underfunded New York’s public university systems, and beleaguered students, are an extreme example of national trends
		Feature Articles Overcrowded and Underfunded New York’s public university systems, and beleaguered students, are an extreme example of national trends Turning Students Away The plight of Florida’s community colleges suggests the depth of the state’s financial crisis Diminishing State Support Pennsylvania reduces state aid amid relentless tuition hikes and record enrollments Behind the Eight Ball Illinois resorts to budgetary sleight-of-hand and one-time fixes to maintain higher education funding Tuition Policy Debate Washington’s public higher education costs continue to shift from the state to the student Calamity in California State’s battered budget leads to huge fee increases and less access to public universities News from the Center New Center Associates and National Center Policy Studies Group Editorial Core Principles In this recession, the highest priority should be placed on college access and affordability Other Voices A Societal Imperative Changing the way we think about community colleges Breaking the Affordability Barrier How much of the college access problem is attributable to lack of information about financial aid? William Trombley with his wife Audrey in 1999. William Trombley Senior Editor of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education and Founding Editor of National Crosstalk
By Jon Marcus New York JUST UPTOWN from the epicenter of the world’s economic crisis, Borough of Manhattan Community College is a symbol of how the financial cataclysm that began a few blocks away on Wall Street has battered public higher education in America. It’s crowded. Very, very crowded. Every seat is taken in every classroom you can see. Some of those seats are in the aisles. There are lines outside the computer labs. Lines snake through the food court. There are particularly long lines at the financial-aid office.   New York’s tuition increases are nothing less than a tax on students, critics say. “We call it the SUNY tax,” says Maria Davila, a 21-year-old senior at SUNY New Paltz.   With a central campus built to handle 8,000 students, Borough of Manhattan is straining to contain some 21,700, part of a 12 percent enrollment increase at the six community colleges of the City University of New York and an eight percent jump at CUNY systemwide, including in its 11 senior colleges. Enrollment at CUNY’s upstate counterpart, the 64-campus State University of New York, hit an unprecedented 439,523 this fall. At CUNY, there are more than 259,000 students, surpassing the previous record set in 1974, when it was free. (continue)
Turning Students Away The plight of Florida’s community colleges suggests the depth of the state’s financial crisis
By Robert A. Jones Miami FLORIDA’S EDUCATORS have predicted an Armageddon here almost as frequently as weathermen predict hurricanes. Each time the state whacked the higher education budget, the predictions of doom grew more dire. But no one expected disaster to strike quite so dramatically as it did on a hot summer’s night here in Miami, at the state’s flagship community college. The night of June 17, 2009 already has become something of a legend at Miami Dade College, with virtually all the administrators and students able to tell their own stories of the evening’s horrors. It was the night when burgeoning demand for education ran headlong into shrunken supply. Miami Dade College does not, initially, present itself as the poster child of broken budgets. It sprawls over eight campuses and this year will attract 170,000 students, making it the largest public institution of higher education in the nation. Its campuses have art galleries, intercollegiate sports teams and literary magazines.   Eduardo Padrón (right), president of Miami Dade College, chats with students at the downtown campus. His audacious plan for a half-cent sales tax increase in Dade County would create a badly needed source of funding for the college.   Miami Dade, in fact, is a place of many superlatives in the world of institutions that grant associate’s degrees: It produces more two-year degrees, more minority graduates, and collects more Pell grants than any other public college in the country. Its president, Eduardo Padrón, was on the short list of candidates for appointment as President Barack Obama’s secretary of education. And so, considering the college’s size and expertise, nothing initially seemed amiss when it announced it would open online registration for the fall semester at midnight on June 17. Looking back, however, various signs pointed to trouble. (continue)
© 2009 The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education