A commission convened by New York’s governor, Eliot Spitzer, issued a preliminary report today, recommending how the state can improve its universities and use both public and private institutions to help fuel the economy.
Governor Spitzer, a Democrat, created the New York State Commission on Higher Education in May, asking its members to identify ways the state could strengthen its two public-university systems, the State University of New York and the City University of New York. He also sought ideas for how public and private colleges could better prepare students to fill high-skill jobs.
The panel, which includes state legislators, college presidents, faculty members, and students, is scheduled to issue its final report by June.
The governor called the report “bold” and “comprehensive,” but noted that its recommendations would be “expensive” to adopt.
Mr. Spitzer said he would review the proposals to determine which of them he will press next year as part of his budget plan and in his State of the State address to lawmakers.
“It is critically important that New York upgrade and invest in its systems of higher education,” he said in a news conference today. Doing so, he emphasized, is especially important for New York’s economic future.
“Where the great universities are, there the jobs have migrated,” the governor said.
Among other things, the report says, New York must refrain from “overregulation” and allow its public universities to raise tuition and charge different prices without legislative approval.
The report also urges the state to reinvigorate its higher-education system by establishing a $3-billion research fund to support economic development; creating a “low cost” student-loan program; and hiring 2,000 more full-time professors, including 250 “eminent scholars,” over the next five years.
The state should agree to multiyear “compacts” with the public universities, which would guarantee them a certain level of funds for basic operating costs, including salaries, the panel recommended. In return the universities would agree to limit the growth of tuition. —Sara Hebel
