Chancellor Zimpher, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan Discuss 'The Future of Education' at APLU Convocation
June 26, 2012
Washington, DC – State University of New York Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher today joined U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, U.S. Under Secretary of Education Martha Kanter, former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates, and education officials from across the country in Washington, DC, for the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU) Convocation, held in celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Morrill Act of 1862.
Hosting a panel discussion on “The Future of Education” with Secretary Duncan and Under Secretary Kanter, Chancellor Zimpher called on the membership organizations of APLU to embrace their sector’s capacity to have a collective impact on the delivery of education in America.
“The Morrill Act we commemorate today was visionary legislation that fulfilled a great American need for highly esteemed research universities, with public service at their core,” said Chancellor Zimpher. “Today, with this vision at our back, we need only to embrace our potential for collective impact to become the world’s most formidable higher education enterprise in the 21st century.”
Chancellor Zimpher urged APLU members to be more disciplined, finding ways to keep costs down and shift administrative spending to greater investments in student services. She cited SUNY’s rational tuition policy and New York State’s parallel commitment to maintain funding for public higher education as a means to keeping college affordable.
She also urged university leaders to be more transparent about the costs of college, calling for 100 percent adoption of President Obama’s Financial Aid Shopping Sheet, which was announced in recent weeks and would provide prospective students with the type and amount of financial aid they qualify for, and easily compare for them the costs of college at every participating institution.
Finally, Chancellor Zimpher urged APLU members to embrace the capacity of their institutions to help solve the country’s biggest problems, by adopting some of the six big ideas at work in SUNY’s strategic plan to mend the education pipeline, address challenges in healthcare, and capitalize on the energy-smart ideas and resources of their campuses.
A transcript of Chancellor Zimpher’s remarks is available online.
About the State University of New York
The State University of New York, which celebrates its 75th anniversary this year, 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 2022, 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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