Chancellor King and the SUNY Board of Trustees Statement on the 2024/2025 Enacted NYS Budget
April 22, 2024
"The final 2024/2025 Enacted New York State budget underscores the commitment of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature to ensure New Yorkers continue to have access to high-quality, affordable higher education, as well as their confidence in SUNY's role as the nation's leading statewide public system of higher education. As a result of the significant investments included in this year's budget, SUNY will have more resources to advance the pillars of student success; research and scholarship; diversity, equity, and inclusion; and economic development and upward mobility.
"Across SUNY, this year's budget builds on the previous year's $163 million historic investment in State-operated campuses and Statutory Colleges with an additional $114 million in general operating aid provided for Direct State Tax Support in the next academic year. These resources make it possible to maintain SUNY's extraordinary value and affordability, strengthen our program offerings, invest in student success, offer paid internships, increase support for students with disabilities, fund mental health care, continue to address food insecurity, and expand our research capabilities.
"The 2024/25 Enacted State budget also builds on the historic maintenance of the 100% Community College Funding Floor – which ensures that $85 million in Direct State Tax Support is not lost for SUNY's Community Colleges – by also providing an increase of $8 million of base aid to help prepare students for high-demand fields.
"Approximately 52% of SUNY New York State resident undergraduate students attend SUNY tuition-free thanks to state, federal, and institutional financial aid. Since the inception of the state's Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) in the 1970s, New York has maintained a key focus on affordability and access to higher education. As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of TAP, SUNY is thrilled that the final Enacted Budget includes a doubling of TAP's minimum award from $500 to $1,000, an increase to the maximum income threshold from $80,000 to $125,000 for dependent students, and a long overdue increase to the independent student income eligibility that will make more hard-working adults eligible for financial aid to earn a degree. Governor Hochul, Senate Higher Education Chair Stavisky, and Assembly Higher Education Chair Fahy, in particular, deserve enormous credit for making these gains a priority this year.
"Another essential component of keeping SUNY affordable is ensuring that high school seniors fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA. We are grateful to the Governor and the legislature for making the FAFSA universal for high school seniors. This crucial piece of legislation was a priority for SUNY because it will help more students access financial aid and turn their college dreams into reality.
"We are also excited about the opportunities ahead for the Empire AI research center. Thanks to Governor Hochul's leadership, Empire AI represents a momentous opportunity for the state of New York, SUNY, and our Empire AI Consortium partners to lead on the use of artificial intelligence for the public good. We are proud that the University at Albany, Binghamton University, University at Buffalo, and Stony Brook University will be able to conduct groundbreaking research through Empire AI, and we are grateful that UB has been selected as the home of this leading-edge technology.
"For decades, SUNY's Educational Opportunity Program (EOP), has promoted educational equity for more than 85,000 students. Nearly three-quarters of EOP students at four-year institutions complete a bachelor's program within six years. By investing more funding in this crucial program, SUNY system and our campuses can expand this 50-plus year program for thousands more New Yorkers. We are grateful for this budget's investment of nearly $44.4 million in EOP across higher education. We are also grateful for important investments that will sustain the Hispanic Leadership Institute and the Black Leadership Institute, and launch SUNY's first-ever Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Leadership Institute.
"The budget also includes a $2.75 million expansion of community service opportunities for our students through the launch of the Empire State Service Corps Program, led by Lieutenant Governor Delgado, as well as $12 million for the Governor's Science of Reading initiative, which will train New York State's teachers in strategies to dramatically improve reading literacy. For SUNY, $1 million from that investment will be used to expand access to the microcredential program at SUNY New Paltz. Further programmatic investments include nearly $2 million in funding for the NY-SWIMS Initiative, an increase in the Maritime Scholarship Program of $1 million, and restorations of essential programmatic initiatives and supports for specific programs at SUNY institutions.
"In addition to the final budget's commitment to SUNY's operating budget, the state will provide much needed capital dollars that continue recent historic levels of investment in SUNY's capital plan. Since becoming Governor, Governor Hochul has worked with the legislature to deliver significant investment in capital funding in SUNY's physical infrastructure—both in additional critical maintenance funding and specific funding for research activities. This is bolstered by an additional investment of nearly $1 billion in new capital funding in the 2024/25 Enacted New York State budget. With more than $8 billion in critical maintenance needs, this investment will allow SUNY and its campuses to continue to make progress in addressing our campus needs and invest in vital research infrastructure and instrumentation that will lead to world-class research and help attract and retain stellar faculty.
"SUNY is committed to Downstate Health Sciences University's mission of training the next generation of diverse, world-class medical professionals and delivering high-quality healthcare to Central Brooklyn. The state budget's historic investment in Downstate – which includes $100 million in operating aid to address this year's projected deficit and the establishment of an advisory board to make recommendations for how to invest a set amount of capital funds to build a sustainable future – will allow this critical institution to fulfill this mission, grow outpatient healthcare services, and tackle systemic health inequities in the community it serves. Governor Hochul's leadership in delivering this unprecedented infusion of capital funding will also allow SUNY to preserve some of the most vital inpatient services at Downstate while strengthening partnerships with neighboring hospitals. Chancellor King's complete statement on the enacted budget's inclusion of the plan for a stronger SUNY Downstate can be found here.
"For more than 75 years, SUNY has been a place of an excellence and inclusion in higher education, and we are thankful for our Governor's commitment to our campuses, and most importantly, our students."
About the State University of New York
The State University of New York is the largest comprehensive system of higher education in the United States, and more than 95 percent of all New Yorkers live within 30 miles of any one of SUNY’s 64 colleges and universities. Across the system, SUNY has four academic health centers, five hospitals, four medical schools, two dental schools, a law school, the country’s oldest school of maritime, the state’s only college of optometry, and manages one US Department of Energy National Laboratory. In total, SUNY serves about 1.4 million students amongst its entire portfolio of credit- and non-credit-bearing courses and programs, continuing education, and community outreach programs. SUNY oversees nearly a quarter of academic research in New York. Research expenditures system-wide are nearly $1.1 billion in fiscal year 2023, including significant contributions from students and faculty. There are more than three million SUNY alumni worldwide, and one in three New Yorkers with a college degree is a SUNY alum. To learn more about how SUNY creates opportunities, visit suny.edu.
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Holly Liapis
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