Higher education maintains and advances New York's policy priorities
of access, quality and equity through planning, budgeting and
program review. All of these processes rely on information, and
all are interdependent.
Planning at SUNY and CUNY
The formal requirements of the Regents' planning process have
largely determined planning at SUNY and CUNY in the past. The
impact of the changes made in the statewide process in 1995 will
undoubtedly be reflected at SUNY and CUNY, but it is too early
to determine the shape of these changes.
Except as a setting for changes in programs or institutional missions
which ultimately required the Regents' approval, past SUNY and
CUNY four-year master plans have had little impact on system operations.
Aside from the formal planning required by the Regents, the SUNY
central office developed plans (SUNY 2000 and SUNY 2000, Phase II) focusing on the availability, demand and centrality of academic
programs at the campuses. According to a senior SUNY officer,
however, opposition by some campus presidents and interested legislators
prevented adoption of a comprehensive plan that might have led
to campus closures or mergers. On the other hand, a SUNY campus
executive stated that "there is no common plan and never has been."
The December 1995 plan, Rethinking SUNY, which was required by the Legislature, may be the beginning
of more substantive academic planning at SUNY, although a SUNY
officer predicted that the Trustees' emphasis on decentralization
and market forces would work against systemwide planning.
In contrast, in the early 1990s the CUNY board, according to a CUNY officer, was "unhappy with increasing tuition as a major device for responding to state fiscal problems" and "took a strong position on academic program planning." He noted that CUNY had advantages that SUNY lacked: geographic proximity of campuses and the availability of public transportation. Others suggested that CUNY's acceptance of specific priorities (regarding access and service to an immigrant population) are additional advantages. A year or so prior to system adoption of academic program planning, a similar procedure had been initiated at Baruch College by a new president who strongly believed that fiscal pressures required setting academic priorities. This example of planning at Baruch College was transferred within CUNY's compact structure. An additional factor that helped in implementing systemwide planning was the universitywide graduate program and Graduate Center, which brought together faculty from all campuses. A CUNY officer said that program planning is now an ongoing academic process. The chancellor identified the primary issues to be addressed, but said that "the exact nature of the process and the format of the reports" vary with the "culture" of each college.
A senior CUNY officer said the budgets for CUNY and SUNY are essentially
"non-competing," noting CUNY's political support in the Democratic
Assembly and SUNY's support from the Governor and in the Senate.
In the budget process the Legislature maintains the "facade" that
CUNY is the city's university, according to a legislative staff
member. CUNY's four-year institutions are budgeted as a city institution,
then reimbursed by the state for 100 percent of the city's costs.
This separation in the budget is for appearance only, said this
staff member, to acknowledge that in terms of its governance,
CUNY is a city institution.
Table 7 shows the changes in state and local resources for SUNY,
CUNY, the independent institutions, and the TAP program over the
last five years. While state support for SUNY has declined in
real terms and state support for CUNY has declined significantly
over the five-year period, funding for the TAP program, which
is structured as an entitlement, has outpaced inflation. State
funding for independent institutions decreased significantly during
this period.
Changes in Support for Higher Education, 1990 and 1995 (Dollars in Millions) |
|||
| SUNY | |||
| State Support | |||
| Local Support | |||
| CUNY | |||
| State Support | |||
| Local Support | |||
| Independents | |||
| Bundy Aid | |||
| TAP | |||
| U.S. CPI | |||
| Sources: State University of New York, Budget Development Office, 1996; City University of New York, The Chancellor's Budget Request, 1991-92 through 1996-97 editions (New York: 1991 through 1996); Commission on Independent Colleges and Universities, 1997; University of the State of New York, State Education Department, Annual Report on Student Financial Aid Programs (1991 to 1996). | |||
Budget Formulation
Neither SUNY or CUNY uses explicitly enrollment-driven formulas
in developing their budget requests to the state. At SUNY, however,
the level of tuition income is an incentive for meeting the enrollment
levels stated in the request. If a campus is over-enrolled, it
does not receive additional funds. If it is under-enrolled, then
it could face trouble in the next budget. There is strong belief
at the campuses that they should be able to retain tuition income,
and a device was developed through system negotiation with the
state Division of the Budget to permit this to a limited extent.
At CUNY, on the other hand, four-year campuses are allowed to
keep tuition dollars in excess of projections, but must also carry
forward responsibility for deficits.
Until recently the budget requests of both SUNY and CUNY have
been aggregations of campus requests after internal review. At
present, however, both systems appear to be maintaining this aggregation
for a core budget request for items such as salary increases and
inflation, but consolidating special campus requests and tying
them to systemwide initiatives. In SUNY, campus heads sometimes
lobby their legislators for a specific project that may show up
in the state budget as "higher education miscellaneous," which
is not part of the regular SUNY budget.
Budget Allocation
SUNY and CUNY are given greater flexibility than other state agencies
in how appropriations can be spent and distributed. Although there
is a schedule of payments to each campus, money can be shifted
from one campus to another, but in most cases this would have
to be justified to the Legislature. When midyear reductions in
the state budget are made, then both systems are free from the
usual control limits on shifting funds across budget lines. In
SUNY, allocations are seen as "essentially across the board,"
according to one campus head, a perception that may be based on
the inability of the allocation process to deal with precipitous
enrollment losses at several campuses. In CUNY, although the allocation
process seems to be in flux, the central office is seen as allocating
funds to reflect the chancellor's priorities-for example, to fund
a central institute for English as a Second Language with funds
requested for campus programs.
SUNY places an upper limit on the tuition that community colleges
can charge, but few are at that limit. A community college president
stated that neither "SUNY central nor the SUNY Board of Trustees
take a critical look at our budgets . . . . This is all done locally"
by the local board of trustees. The CUNY Board of Trustees is
the "local board" for the community colleges in that system.
Both SUNY and CUNY build incentives into the allocation process. SUNY has attempted to improve articulation by giving additional funds to four-year colleges based on their enrollment of graduates of two-year campuses. CUNY uses its control over new faculty positions to encourage compliance with systemwide objectives.
At the state level, the Regents' major point of contact with institutions
is in the quality-review area. Programs offered by institutions
that are from outside New York are subject to Regents' approval,
and the Regents' insistence on quality is said to have avoided
having "degree mills" in the state. Program review is periodic
and usually takes place at an institution once every ten years.
In the 1970s, the Regents terminated several doctoral programs
in SUNY, and, when challenged by the state university, the Regents'
authority to do so was upheld in court. Regarding new program
approval, a former SUNY chancellor said that Regents' reviews
"duplicate what the system already does, and that program approval
would be better handled by the SUNY central administration." A
SUNY campus president agreed, noting that "the issues are too
political," and that the Regents back down under pressure of the
private sector when competing programs are an issue.
A senior administrator at CUNY said the Regents' periodic reviews
of doctoral programs are valuable, noting that outside experts
are brought in to review all doctoral programs in a given area
for the entire state. Such reviews provide leverage for accomplishing
goals that might otherwise be difficult to achieve. CUNY's own
academic program planning depends on review of existing programs,
as well as approval of new ones. This planning process was initiated
to guide reallocation of support and has not been perceived as
simply a way to give money back to the state. In the three years
following its initiation in 1992, 128 programs at CUNY colleges
were suspended, consolidated, or phased out. During the same period,
38 new programs were approved by the board. CUNY requires periodic
program reviews at its campuses and is drafting guidelines for
ad hoc reviews of particularly weak programs that fail to sustain adequate
levels of activity and resources.
SUNY central staff believe that good information about performance
and relative levels of quality and activity at different institutions
is available, but that neither the central office nor the Trustees
have used it to the extent that they should.
The CUNY central office is upgrading its management information system, which, according to a campus head, does not at currently allow campus collection of needed information.
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