For SUNY system, bigger isn’t necessarily better

The breadth of the 64-campus State University of New York system has long been a source of pride for state leaders. However, as we exit the pandemic and confront acute challenges in education and the economy, it’s time to question whether a bigger system is better for New York’s students.

SUNY’S enrollment has declined significantly over the past decade — 20 percent, or nearly 100,000 students, from 2012 to 2022 — with the COVID years comprising less than half (46

Madhuri Kommareddi is the former director of workforce development for the New York State Executive Chamber and a former economic policy adviser in the Obama White House. She’s now in the private sector. percent) of that decline.

While college enrollment decreases are a national phenomenon, New York’s enrollment decline has been more severe and sustained. For example, New York’s community college enrollment declined nearly 24 percent, compared with a 16 percent national decline. And perhaps most concerning: Despite national college enrollment stabilization over this past year, including an increase at New York’s private colleges, New York’s public twoand four-year schools still saw sustained enrollment declines this fall.

Why is this happening? The most obvious answer may be New York’s ongoing population decline. However, we must also note that fewer people view higher education as valuable. A study last year found that despite the “Great Resignation,” only 32 percent of prospective adult learners think college is worth the cost, and 46 percent think it would advance career prospects — a decline of 18 percent and 13 percent, respectively, in just a year and a half.

With a “college for all” mindset potentially waning, we have to radically rethink how we educate New Yorkers. And to do so, we must recognize that onesize-fits-all doesn’t work in a society where the average job tenure is just over four years, and less than three years for millennials and Gen Z.

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Let’s break up this behemoth by moving SUNY’S 30 community colleges into their own system, with its own leadership and board of directors.

A centralized system overseeing more than five dozen institutions is simply not set up for nimbleness or flexibility, which is not only what New Yorkers increasingly want, but also what rapidly changing businesses and a dynamic global economy require.

Let’s break up this behemoth by moving SUNY’S 30 community colleges into their own system, with its own leadership and board of directors.

Two states with leading community college systems already do this. North Carolina created a statewide community college system with its own board in the 1970s. California has always had three different college systems — University of California, California State, and California Community Colleges.

This new board can not only ensure equal footing in Albany budget and legislative lobbying, but also redefine the mandate of community colleges as institutions of lifelong learning. We can finally supercharge today’s marginal efforts to create high-quality terminal associate degrees; non-degree credentials; online continuing education; stronger partnerships with local businesses; and enhanced dual enrollment programs with high schools, which are largely responsible for the national community college enrollment stabilization POST-COVID.

New York can recruit a leading community college expert, ideally a former community college student, to lead this new system. That’s a profile that would never be considered to run the consolidated SUNY system. In fact, of the 16 current SUNY board trustees, only one, former Lt. Gov. Bob Duffy, has a degree from a community college. SUNY’S community college interests are represented by only one SUNY board member, who by law has no voting power.

Having two systems doesn’t come at the cost of community college students matriculating into four-year institutions if they choose. California’s community college system reports that almost onethird of UC graduates and more than half of CSU graduates previously attended California community colleges. Today’s SUNY is just on par, with 45 percent of its four-year degree students being transfer students.

Some may argue that a new statewide community college system is unneeded because New York’s community colleges are locally controlled by individual boards of directors. However, burying New York’s community colleges under local boards, then a SUNY sub-department, and then within SUNY’S Board of Trustees is even more bureaucratic and inefficient.

New York’s four-year and graduate institutions can also benefit from focused oversight. It has long been a lament that New York lacks a premier national education leader like a Berkeley or Ann Arbor. This type of strategy would focus implementation of Gov. Kathy Hochul’s designation of the University at Buffalo and Stony Brook as SUNY flagships, which, unsurprisingly, has stalled.

Having one entity overseeing all of New York’s post-high school learners and institutions is just too big and unwieldy, with opaque outcomes as a result, no matter how talented SUNY leadership is. Let’s commit to solving 21st-century problems with a 21st-century solution, rather than just hoping our lumbering 20th-century SUNY system will somehow start working for New Yorkers.