ALBANY — Unless they qualify for the state's new free tuition program, State University of New York students will see their tuition increase $200 this fall.

The SUNY board of trustees voted Wednesday to raise tuition 3.1 percent to $6,670 for in-state students attending the state's four-year colleges — a move student leaders strongly condemned as "unconscionable" when "so many viable alternatives" exist.

"Before we levy yet another increase, let's conduct a full and honest systemwide efficiency audit and implement the most innovative practices the great minds of our system can devise to share services, cut down on administrative costs, and costs associated with facility usage," said Student Assembly President and Trustee Marc Cohen.

But the tuition hike is necessary, trustees say, to help maintain programs and compensate for revenue lost as a result of the state's new free tuition program.

The Excelsior Scholarship, pushed through the Legislature this spring to help increase college affordability, will provide free public college tuition to all students whose families earn less than $100,000 and who attend school full-time. (The income cutoff will eventually increase to $125,000.)

As a result of these requirements, the tuition hike approved Wednesday is most likely to affect students from higher-income families as well as part-time students, who are more likely to be first-generation students, students with limited incomes, and older adults balancing families and jobs.

While the state agreed to cover the cost of tuition for eligible students, it's only doing so after all other forms of financial are taken into account and at the tuition rate established in 2016-17. This means any tuition increases above that rate must be covered by SUNY itself.

It's still unknown just how many students will qualify for the scholarship. The deadline to apply is July 21. On Tuesday, trustees said about 20 percent of students at SUNY's 28 four-year colleges had applied.

The tuition hike comes at an interesting time in New York's higher education sector.

For five out of the past six years, SUNY trustees voted to raise tuition by $300 a year — the maximum allowable threshold under the law. After student protests and walkouts over the hikes, lawmakers imposed a tuition freeze for the 2016-17 academic year. SUNY officials, meanwhile, argued they wouldn't have to increase tuition if the state properly invested in its public university system.

At the same time the Excelsior Scholarship gained legislative approval, lawmakers also agreed to lift the tuition freeze and give SUNY the authority to increase tuition up to $200 a year until 2020-21.

But raising tuition to the maximum every time SUNY gains authority to do so sends the wrong message to the governor and lawmakers, Cohen argued Tuesday.

"When we roll over and raise tuition year after year, we create an expectation and an incentive to the state to skimp on appropriately investing in our system," he said. "And why would they, knowing that we will just reach down into our bottomless ATM of students and simply take out more cash?

"There's a substantial case to be made that refusing to raise tuition prioritizes state investment," he continued. "It's an unsustainable model. We will reach a breaking point. It's time to draw a line in the sand."

On Wednesday, the board also approved varying tuition increases for some graduate, professional, online and community colleges in the SUNY system. See the full list of tuition increases below.

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