Pataki to propose state budget
After months of lobbying and urging, student groups will be all ears as Gov. George E. Pataki presents his executive budget today.
At 11 a.m. Pataki is scheduled to announce his budget, which will include his decision whether to propose an increase in tuition at State University of New York schools and whether he will propose cutting funding to the Tuition Assistance Program. The budget, however, still must be approved by the State Legislature.
Professor Jeffrey Stonecash, chairman of the political science department at Syracuse University, said Pataki faces a $10 billion deficit this year, and with already significant property taxes it is likely Pataki will try passing some of the burden to SUNY students.
He added the Legislature would likely approve a less drastic increase in SUNY tuition than the 41 percent increase proposed by the SUNY Board of Trustees last week, but would not be in favor of a cut to TAP. An increase in tuition coupled with a cut in TAP would have a large impact on the number of students able to attend college, he said.
Last weekend The New York Times reported Pataki could propose a cut in TAP of up to 50 percent, said Sean Vormwald, project coordinator for the New York Public Interest Research Group at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry and SU. This would affect more than 2,700 SU undergraduate students and more than 150 SU graduate students who receive the graduate form of TAP.
“The conservative argument is that an investment in education reaps tremendous benefits for the individual,” Stonecash said. “In a few years, four or five thousand dollars becomes peanuts.”
Vormwald said students across the state are hoping Pataki will listen to them about education’s importance as an investment and will not raise tuition or cut TAP .
Ryan Colombo, a junior political science and history major and chairman of the College Republicans at SU, said education as an investment is a valid objection to an increase in education because students who attend SUNY schools are more likely to stay and work in New York State than students who went to college outside of the state.
Colombo said while Pataki is faced with difficult decisions on what to cut and what to fund he seems to have chosen health care and technology as his main recipients.
Vormwald said the investment in education is important because a raise in tuition or a cut in financial aid would be bad for the state economy as a whole.
“Pataki has been touring the state saying he wants to get rid of job-killing taxes but an increase in tuition would be a job-killing tax,” he said. “We would be taking away students’ ability to get a needed higher education.”
Stonecash said Pataki has an interesting history with the budget, but it is unknown at this point how New York residents will react to his latest endeavor.
“I don’t know whether or not he will be damaged by this,” he said.
Published on January 28, 2003 at 12:00 pm