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MCC Daily Tribune Archive

President's Wednesday Message


Now that the 2015-16 Enacted Budget is finalized the picture for community colleges is clearer. 

As you will recall, community colleges are funded by the state through base aid, which in the current budget is $2,497 per full-time equivalent (FTE) student. Going into budget advocacy, SUNY and CUNY community colleges were unanimous in their request to increase base aid by $250 per FTE. The enacted budget falls short of that figure: $100 per FTE. The good news is that this is $25 more than last year’s increase; the bad news is that our upcoming base aid of $2,597 is still well below the base aid community colleges received in 2009. And, community college operational and personnel costs continue to rise: cumulative inflation over the six years since 2009 has been about 9.4%. (Thus, if our base aid had just kept pace with inflation, it would be $2,926 today.)

In other funding areas, the 2015-2016 Enacted Budget includes two new competitive community college grant programs that are yet to be fully defined: (1)  the Community Schools Grant Awards; (2) Career Centers Integration. The first of these will model the K12 Community Schools program and bring community-based agencies onto campus in coordinated partnerships to support student success. The second is less clear at this point but seems to be funding a college-based one-stop model in coordination with local career and workforce centers. New York Job Linkages funding was continued at 2014-2015 levels; these dollars are awarded based on performance in workforce-related programs. Finally, child care funding was restored and increased.

Much of the discussion in Albany this year has focused on policy proposals that, while non-budgetary, were linked to the passage of the budget. After much discussion, the majority of these policy proposals did pass; among those with the greatest impact on community colleges are as follows:

* Community College Regional Councils: Council regions will be defined by and members shall be appointed by the Chancellor; chairs shall be sitting community college presidents; the charge shall be to set program development, enrollment, and transfer goals within each region, coordinate education and training program offerings within each region, establish goals to improve student outcomes.

* Get on Your Feet Loan Forgiveness Program: New York State will pay the first two years of monthly student loan obligations under the Federal “Pay As You Earn” (PAYE) program to students who meet certain criteria.

* Standardized Financial Aid Award Letter: A statewide standard financial aid award letter must be in place by December 31, 2015 for colleges and vocational institutions to use in responding to financial aid applicants for the 2016/2017 academic year and on.

* Disabled Student Tuition Assistance Awards: “Satisfactory progress towards completion” for disabled students receiving TAP amended as defined by the ADA Act of 1990.

* Foster Youth College Success Initiative: Grants will be made available to SUNY, CUNY, and certain institutes of private higher education to provide expanded opportunities for foster youth.


* Community College/BOCES AOS Degree Pursuit: SUNY community college boards of trustees are authorized to consult with the boards of BOCES to identify new or existing programs that would allow a student to pursue an associate of occupational studies (AOS) degree at a community college following high school graduation.

Several other high profile measures, including the DREAM Act and Uniform Sexual Violence Prevention, were not included in the final legislation but may be brought up in the future.

I want to thank all who worked through the past few months on budget advocacy. We are not where we wanted to be, but we are certainly in a better place than we might have been. The closure of the state budget gives us clarity on the resources available and it triggers the next step in the College’s process: beginning the next round of advocacy to obtain local support for the passage of MCC’s budget. Please post your comments and questions on the
blog.

Anne M. Kress
Office of the President
04/08/2015