Recently, with the impending financial crisis, and devastating budget cuts to SUNY, the SUNY Student Assembly voted in support of a rational tuition increase plan. Norm Goodman, Vice President Secretary of the SUNY Faculty Senate, supports the plan. He calls it “the most intelligent and wise thing to do.” Joe Antonelli, Stony Brook’s Student Representative, supports it as well, saying it’s “the only responsible path for the students of SUNY to be taking.” This would seem to be the panacea for all our woes, right? This couldn’t be more of a disservice to the students of 
SUNY. The rational tuition plan is nothing more than a commitment to raise tuition by 3%-5% every year. This is a minimum, not a maximum. Some of the more reasonable students on the Assembly (who voted against it) see it rising as high as 10%. In addition, a rational tuition plan wouldn’t bind legislature preventing a dramatic hike in addition to the rational increases. The lie that is being fed to students is that, with a rational tuition plan, tuition won’t be raised drastically. There is no actual way to prevent this, since it is illegal to tie the hands of future legislation. NYPIRG, in their years of tireless efforts to prevent a rational tuition plan in SUNY, have researched other states tuition plans. They have found that states with a rational tuition plan more often than not receive tuition hikes as well.
This tuition increase was forced upon the students in this time of crisis, and the Student Assembly happily accepted it. You have completely betrayed our trust, members of the Student Assembly. We encourage all those students out their to get in touch with their representative, and yell, “No to rational tuition!”
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