Fahy discusses higher education budget fight

ALBANY, New York — In her second year heading the state Assembly’s Higher Education Committee, Pat Fahy has a long list of priorities. But it starts with securing funding to support the state’s colleges.

Fahy said she is confident SUNY will receive an additional $54 million in operating aid in the coming fiscal year, as promised in the past.

Beyond that, she couldn’t predict.

The 64-campus system has what Fahy described as “jaw dropping” asks that include $84 million to cover salary increases negotiated with the faculty union; a $500 million increase in funds to cover capital needs and a $100 million clean energy fund.

Additionally, there are non-budget issues like expanding the state’s tuition assistance program (TAP) and making FAFSA a requirement for high school graduation to help students get federal help for college.

And if the money doesn’t come through, SUNY officials plan to go back to their traditional request that is usually rebuffed: allowing them to raise tuition.

It’s complicated, Fahy, the Albany-area Democrat, said in an interview with POLITICO ahead of Gov. Kathy Hochul’s State of the State where the governor Tuesday will lay out her priorities, including for SUNY.

“It’s shocking how much higher education has really become front and center on a number of issues, good and bad,” Fahy said.

SUNY’s requests are always heavily scrutinized as lawmakers look to keep the public institutions affordable for all — especially this year as the state is facing a $4.3 billion deficit and Hochul has ordered state agencies to keep funding flat.

Fahy also noted the pressure to ensure that colleges are protecting healthy civil discourse while also combating hate speech.

She noted that while bailouts for struggling independent and private colleges are unprecedented in the state amid closures, including St. Rose in her district, there are growing conversations around the challenges that campuses face.

The interview has been edited for clarity and length.

What are you hoping to achieve this legislative session? 

Starting with the incredible enrollment challenges that we have at SUNY and CUNY, as well as the challenges that we have with our private schools, that's a big deal.

We've seen cutbacks at Potsdam and Fredonia. St. Rose is in my backyard; that's my neighborhood. So there’s lots of challenges with higher education; affordability continues to be an issue. The overwhelming number of parents in every survey say college has become out of reach. So TAP is my number one budget issue.

And at the same time, there’s healthcare shortages that we desperately need to help further address. We have a number of bills; we made some progress on a few things last year, and I am doubling down.

What are you hoping to secure for higher education in the state budget? 

TAP, TAP, TAP.

If we don't grow enrollment, it's hard to justify increasing operating aid, and it's hard to justify capital investments. So the first priority for me is going to be TAP.

I've talked to both chancellors. I've talked to everybody I can talk to, to say, if I'm missing something, tell me. But we need to make sure TAP is not just focused on lower-income students. We've got to include middle-class families in that too — to make sure that their students can afford college. And it’s expanding TAP to graduate students and to microcredentials.

Secondly, we do need to maintain the operating aid. I said last year: The governor ended up doing us a favor. It ended up catching tremendous press when she proposed to raise tuition. She was doing it because you can't keep starving academic institutions and expect them to compete with out-of-state institutions. We have way too many New York students going out of state because it's pretty affordable out of state.

You also need the capital dollars, the vast majority of these campuses were built in the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s. They're all aging. They all need major energy investments. We can't meet our energy goals if you can't transition them from fossil fuels. So that alone takes a huge upfront [investment], but it saves you in the end.

SUNY had some large asks for this year's budget: a $54 million increase in operating aid, $84 million to cover faculty salary increases and an additional $500 million increase to address capital needs — to name a few. How realistic is it to get these requests into the budget?

Yeah, they are somewhat jaw-dropping numbers.

At the same time, some of the numbers are spread out over 10 years and the contract, that’s a huge number. But this is part of the challenge. We have to keep SUNY and CUNY competitive. We don’t have a single SUNY or CUNY campus ranked in the top 25 universities nationally. So investments matter.

We have all seen the testimonies by college presidents at the federal level regarding hate speech on campuses. Have there been talks about potential action by the Legislature on this issue in New York? 

SUNY alone has done hundreds of trainings of their presidents, of their staff and their faculty to make sure they all understand the rights, what’s acceptable, what is not acceptable and what needs to be investigated.

We’ve got to make sure that our colleges can focus on academics, but the first priority is making sure all students feel safe. There is not pending legislation at this point, but there are many conversations. At this point, we don’t want an Elise Stefanik 2.0, we want to make sure that campus leadership is doing the work they need to do to make sure staff and faculty are trained.

We don’t need to do this in hearings. And so far — with a few egregious incidents — I feel we’re in a decent place. But we need to be vigilant.

Is there anything the state can do to assist private and independent colleges that are struggling financially? 

I know St. Rose very well, and it’s personally devastating to me. That said, we do not have a precedent for bailouts — that’s the term that was used.

Did I seek some bridge funding to try to get them a little more time? Sure, I did. But in the end it was not going to sustain them.

We want to make sure we don’t lose those students permanently. We want them to transition into any of the other colleges and to keep them in the Capitol Region. But in terms of operating dollars, it’s not there.

It puts a lot of other colleges on notice. I worry it won’t be the last one. But the best way to address it holistically is growing enrollment. And you can’t do that without expanding TAP.