Governor Cuomo Is Responsible For Higher College Costs At SUNY

Man, sometimes even the NY Post gets stuff right.

Take this editorial on college loans and the Cuomo proposal to have NY State pick up some of the loan for a couple of years for college graduates who remain in NY State but are make less than $50K a year:

On one thing President Obama and Gov. Cuomo are agreed: The answer to high tuition and crushing student debt is more money from the government.

Problem is, it’s precisely government dollars that are driving up the price of college tuition at a rate far faster than general inflation.

Right now, colleges have no skin in the loan game: If a kid drops out before earning his degree, or if she earns a degree that is worthless and so can’t get a job that pays enough to let her pay off her loans, that’s terrible for her.

But the school has already been paid.

The solution the Posties propose?

If you want to lower college costs, don’t just throw more money at the schools. Ensure the universities have some skin in the game — e.g., by forcing them to pick up part of the loans for a kid who fails out.

And make ’em work for their customers by demonstrating why their degrees are worth what they’re charging for them.

I don't know exactly how you do that second thing, since so many of the second and third tier private schools charge a LOT of money for a degree of dubious value that could be gotten from a state school for much less.

But I do know that making the schools pick up some of the loan costs of students who drop out might make these schools think twice about a) tuition costs and b) loading students up with loans.

But the best way to hold down college costs and give students a quality education is for NY State to provide MORE state aid to SUNY.

Under Governor Cuomo, the percentage of SUNY costs covered by state aid has dropped and the percentage of SUNY costs covered by tuition has increased.

Cuomo has instituted five years of tuition increases that will result in students paying more than 25% higher tuition and fee costs from before he became governor.

I posted this when Cuomo first released his loan debt relief plan and I want to post it again:

Governor Cuomo is the reason why SUNY costs are so high in NY State for college students.

I think the Post is right that colleges ought to have some skin in the game when it comes to student loans.

But I also think Governor Cuomo and the state Legislature ought to be providing more state aid to SUNY in order to provide opportunities for an affordable, quality education to all.