Ray Appleby’s daughter decided as a high school freshman that she wanted to follow the path of her older sister and attend Syracuse University.

Appleby has worked at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry for 27 years to ensure that his two daughters could attend SU under a plan that gave the children of ESF employees free tuition.

But now Appleby’s plan is in jeopardy, as SU Chancellor Nancy Cantor considers eliminating the long-standing ESF tuition benefit policy. It’s a proposal that has sparked opposition with ESF employees, some of whom have based their careers on the tuition guarantee.

Ray passed off two opportunities to take higher-paying jobs so his daughters could use the benefit. His oldest daughter, Stephanie, is under the plan as a junior at SU. But if the tuition benefit is pulled, Ray said, his 14-year-old daughter’s chances of going to SU will be severely limited.

‘She feels cheated,’ Appleby said of his younger daughter.

In the employee benefit proposal made last month, Cantor said the tuition benefit made sense when SU had a school of forestry, which was at least 60 years ago. She said ESF didn’t contribute to SU’s benefit pool and that it was ‘more practical to consider issues of ESF-dependent tuition within the context of SU’s financial aid program.’

Ray, the manager of pilot operations at ESF’s paper and bioprocess engineering department, said the possibility of having that benefit taken away from Sammy, his younger daughter, was very upsetting.

‘I may not be able to give my second daughter all of the opportunities that I gave my first daughter as far as college,’ he said.

SU would save $300,000 by cutting the tuition benefit, according to the proposal. The children of ESF employees enrolled by fall 2010 would be the last ones to receive the plan, with current students keeping it until they graduate.

SU and ESF officials have been talking about the proposal and other ways to provide financial aid to ESF employees. At last month’s open forum, Cantor mentioned a possible financial aid program jointly structured between the two schools. The amount of tuition relief however, was undecided.

Ray said longtime ESF employees should still receive the benefit for their children or pay 10 percent of the tuition, which Cantor proposed for SU employees in her plan.

Ray said there was tension at home about what may or may not be available now that his younger daughter may not receive the benefit. He admitted, however, that he wasn’t sure why SU provided the tuition benefits to ESF employees.

‘I was never exactly sure why I got tuition deferment from SU and not from my own college,’ Ray said. ‘But I looked at it as a huge benefit and a very much appreciated gift.’

Ron Giegerich, curator of ESF’s Roosevelt Wildlife Collection, was planning to use the benefit for his two sons in fourth and sixth grade, he said. He has worked at ESF for 33 years. It was just this year that he starting talking to his sons about going to SU.

However, Giegerich told his sons last week that they may not be able to go to SU after all.

‘They were kind of concerned because I was starting to pump them with the thought of, ‘Hey this could be great,” Giegerich said. ‘They thought they were headed that way one day.’

Giegerich also said the tuition benefit was a selling point for employees to work at ESF.

‘It’s always been something in the back of my mind that I was hoping to take advantage of,’ he said.

SU spokesman Kevin Quinn said in an e-mail that one ESF employee spoke at the previous forum and that SU received one letter from an ESF faculty member.

‘I am not aware of any other direct communication from ESF employees,’ he said, adding that SU expects to meet with ESF officials sometime this week.

ESF employees like Giegerich said they hope some kind of benefit will be offered. But Giegerich wasn’t sure if SU officials were really listening to ESF employees’ concerns, he said.

Giegerich’s two sons have spent time on campus and been to Carrier Dome events. But now they might not have the chance to be part of the orange flush of students by the court.

‘I was kind of priming them for a future at SU,’ Giegerich said, ‘and it’s a big loss.’

mcboren@syr.edu

Published on February 7, 2010 at 12:00 pm