Stu­dents from New York’s SUNY and CUNY sys­tems played a lead­ing role in orga­niz­ing last month’s Stu­dent Pow­er Con­ver­gence in Colum­bus, Ohio, which brought togeth­er stu­dents and advo­cates from across the con­ti­nent. Now, New York­ers are at the fore­front of the North­east Region­al Stu­dent Pow­er Con­ver­gence slat­ed for next spring. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, if stu­dent activists are look­ing for a sym­pa­thet­ic audi­ence among pol­i­cy­mak­ers, they’ll find deaf ears from two very pow­er­ful men.

In May, Pres­i­dent Oba­ma vis­it­ed SUNY’s Col­lege of Nanoscale Sci­ence and Engi­neer­ing (CNSE) for a bro-hug with Gov­er­nor Andrew Cuo­mo and a speech prais­ing Albany’s sil­i­con-dri­ven eco­nom­ic agen­da. The president’s stamp on Cuomo’s devel­op­ment plan, which calls for pub­lic-pri­vate research part­ner­ships cen­tered at New York’s uni­ver­si­ty hubs, earned the gov­er­nor ear­ly points for a poten­tial 2016 White House run. In exchange, Oba­ma could tout New York as a state-lev­el ver­sion of his ide­al eco­nom­ic agen­da while jab­bing Con­gress for mov­ing more slow­ly than Cuomo.

​“I want what’s hap­pen­ing at Albany to hap­pen all across the coun­try,” he said, ​“places like Cleve­land, and Pitts­burgh, and Raleigh.”

The pres­i­dent can be for­giv­en for offhand­ed­ly ges­tur­ing to a few swing states. His lion­iza­tion of New York, on the oth­er hand, should raise red flags for stu­dents across the coun­try. Despite trum­pet­ing the need to ​“cre­ate jobs” and give every­one ​“the best chance to get the right train­ing and edu­ca­tion,” Oba­ma brushed over the dark­er real­i­ty of Cuomo’s vision — the patent destruc­tion of afford­able, com­pre­hen­sive high­er education.

​“Impact Plans” — and consequences

Under the NYSUNY 2020 Chal­lenge Grant Pro­gram Act, passed by the leg­is­la­ture last year, uni­ver­si­ties must sub­mit pro­gram­ming and account­ing plans so that the SUNY cen­tral admin­is­tra­tion can mea­sure their per­for­mance in areas such as grad­u­a­tion rates and meet­ing work-force needs, instead of strict­ly on the basis of enroll­ment. Major needs, accord­ing to SUNY Chan­cel­lor Nan­cy Zim­pher, include nurs­ing, nan­otech­nol­o­gy, and infor­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy. Aca­d­e­m­ic depart­ments are charged with devel­op­ing plans to bol­ster ​“sup­port for instruc­tion and research” — lan­guage that, accord­ing to the ​“Entre­pre­neur­ial Cen­tu­ry” plank of SUNY’s strate­gic plan, effec­tive­ly means pulling in greater exter­nal fund­ing. In the end, uni­ver­si­ties are forced to com­pete for state fund­ing based on how well they align them­selves with the 2020 model.

Accord­ing to a notice from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Albany admin­is­tra­tion on the heels of NYSUNY 2020’s pas­sage, new fac­ul­ty and instruc­tion­al hires fund­ed by the ini­tia­tive must be teth­ered to exter­nal sources of fund­ing or increased depart­men­tal enroll­ment. These hir­ing fac­tors don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly coin­cide, as Eng­lish pro­fes­sor Bret Ben­jamin says, with hir­ing plans ​“as they’ve emerged from organ­ic strengths or needs of depart­ments.” This is not mere admin­is­tra­tive pos­tur­ing. Under NYSUNY 2020, there will be new fac­ul­ty. As part of its ​“Impact Plan,” UAl­bany alone could get 1,350 new stu­dents and 187 new fac­ul­ty over the next five years.

New fund­ing for fac­ul­ty and stu­dents does not scream aus­ter­i­ty, but under the neolib­er­al man­date NYSUNY 2020, it comes with casu­al­ties. Arts, human­i­ties, and social sci­ence depart­ments are, by and large, less mar­ketable as work­force feed­ers and more depen­dent on uni­ver­si­ty fund­ing. Grad stu­dents get to swal­low an extra pill. With cuts to union­ized depart­ments and an influx of stu­dents depen­dent on exter­nal fund­ing, the grad stu­dent union — which has gone three years with­out a new con­tract — is threat­ened with work speed-up and stag­nantpover­ty wages.

For under­grads, Cuomo’s cock­tail is even more poi­so­nous. A key pro­vi­sion of NYSUNY 2020 is ​“ratio­nal tuition,” which replaces errat­ic spikes from state leg­is­la­tors with a steady year­ly increase amount­ing to upwards of 30% from 2011 – 2016. With tuition and fees already among the high­est of any state pro­por­tion­ate to fam­i­ly income, many stu­dents face delays in loan dis­burse­ment or fund­ing from New York’s Tuition Assis­tance Pro­gram. Worse, the Tuition Assis­tance Pro­gram and the Edu­ca­tion­al Oppor­tu­ni­ty Pro­gram, which advo­cates of the tuition plan tend to hand-wave as stop­gaps against unaf­ford­abil­i­ty, are chron­i­cal­ly under­fund­ed by the state leg­is­la­ture. NYSUNY 2020 does noth­ing to address this.

New York is flat

Since 1990, the over­all per­cent­age of SUNY’s fund­ing com­ing from the state has plum­met­ed from 75% to 23%. While Chan­cel­lor Zim­pher does pro­mote fund­ing for the SUNY sys­tem as request­ed by fel­low admin­is­tra­tors, this is a far cry from restor­ing what has been lost in recent years.

Stu­dents who can afford to attend SUNY schools won’t be chal­lenged to think as crit­i­cal­ly or holis­ti­cal­ly. Last year, UAl­bany deac­ti­vat­ed its French, Russ­ian, Ital­ian, Clas­sics, and The­ater pro­grams. This year, under pres­sure from the SUNY admin­is­tra­tion to reduce its gen­er­al edu­ca­tion require­ments, the school elim­i­nat­ed its ​“U.S. Plu­ral­ism and Diver­si­ty,” ​“Regions Beyond Europe,” and ​“Glob­al and Cross-Cul­tur­al Stud­ies” cred­its. Mean­while, Stony Brook has com­bined its music, the­ater, and stu­dio art pro­grams into one; Pur­chase no longer hosts a dra­mat­ic writ­ing pro­gram or alter­na­tive women’s health ser­vices; and Bing­ham­ton has maneu­vered to elim­i­nate ​“Phi­los­o­phy, Inter­pre­ta­tion, and Cul­ture,” a unique grad­u­ate phi­los­o­phy pro­gram cen­ter­ing on non­west­ern philosophy.

​“What we’re fac­ing is a threat to diver­si­ty and acces­si­bil­i­ty,” says Mag­gie Ward, a recent Bing­ham­ton grad­u­ate, ​“in high­er edu­ca­tion as well as academics.”

Mean­while, invest­ment in sci-tech busi­ness part­ner­ship rolls on. Zimpher’s State of the Uni­ver­si­ty address this year, ​“Get­ting Down to Busi­ness,” is a lega­cy of Rethink­ing SUNY—a Clin­ton-era man­i­festo call­ing for greater man­age­ment auton­o­my and fac­ul­ty research out­put — and an alpha­bet soup of pub­lic-pri­vate research cen­ters found­ed since then. Last year’s $100 mil­lion cut to the sys­tem over­all came along­side a $400 mil­lion infu­sion to CNSE, which hous­es few­er than 200 undergrads.

Cuomo’s inter­ests are square­ly aligned in this direc­tion. The man he appoint­ed to lead the SUNY board of trustees, H. Carl McCall, is part of a group of CEOs called the ​“Com­mit­tee to Save New York,” which spent $10 mil­lion last year lob­by­ing in sup­port of the governor’s agen­da. The com­mit­tee eas­i­ly out­spent every oth­er lob­by­ing group in the state.

New York Stu­dents Rising

In response to SUNY’s restruc­tur­ing, the SUNY Stu­dent Asso­ci­a­tion (SSA), an elect­ed body of stu­dents with a sin­gle col­lec­tive vote on the board of trustees, has been large­ly miss­ing in action. Indeed, the SSA has spo­ken in favor of ratio­nal tuition and tends to fol­low admin­is­tra­tive suit. While it was found­ed in 1973 as a for­mal body for stu­dent activists to liai­son with the admin­is­tra­tion, the SSA now feeds mem­bers into posi­tions as leg­isla­tive and admin­is­tra­tive aides.

To fill the void, stu­dents orga­nized last year into New York Stu­dents Ris­ing. Under the ban­ner of ​“Save Our SUNY,” stu­dents held mas­sive protests at the state Capi­tol in the spring of 2011 and two large orga­niz­ing retreats the fol­low­ing sum­mer. On Octo­ber 5, 2011, 14 SUNY schools had walk­outs or direct actions. The Occu­pied Wall Street Jour­nal post­ed the plans, and NYSR had inad­ver­tent­ly giv­en birth to the nation­al Occu­py sol­i­dar­i­ty net­work, ​“Occu­py Colleges.”

Now, NYSR is orga­niz­ing in hand with Stu­dents Unit­ed for a Free CUNY, high school stu­dents and par­ents from Stu­dent Activists Unit­ed and Occu­py the Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion, and pro­gres­sive fac­ul­ty from SUNY and CUNY. On March 5, 33 stu­dents were arrest­ed for a sit-in at Cuomo’s office. In May, stu­dents massed for a ​“Get Ready to Grad­u­ate” action in Manhattan.

This fall, NYSR will be fight­ing along­side fac­ul­ty and cam­pus employ­ees around research foun­da­tion trans­paren­cy—cur­rent­ly, state research foun­da­tions aren’t sub­ject to Free­dom of Infor­ma­tion law, despite con­nec­tions with the gas indus­try and reports of cor­rupt lead­er­ship—and a fair con­tract for grad stu­dents. These cam­paigns coin­cide with sev­er­al broad­er demands: a repeal of NYSUNY 2020, the restora­tion of fund­ing for SUNY and CUNY, a tuition freeze, and a voice in high­er ed policy.

​“We’re try­ing to change the con­ver­sa­tion around high­er edu­ca­tion, try­ing to change the man­ner in which the two sys­tems are run,” says Sean Collins, a polit­i­cal sci­ence major at UAl­bany. ​“How could you change our gen­er­al edu­ca­tion require­ments with­out even con­fer­ring with us? I’m pay­ing for my access to that cur­ricu­lum, I should have a say in what it looks like.”

Email James Cer­son­sky at jcersonsky@​gmail.​com or fol­low him on Twit­ter @cersonsky.