The financial chaos in New York City and beyond likely spells big spending cuts for the state’s two public higher-education systems, the State University of New York (where I served as a trustee for twelve years) and the City University of New York. These far-flung systems have long been overextended and rife with redundant, underutilized, and even frivolous programs. As I pointed out on many occasions, many programs and even some campuses could be consolidated without harm to students, teaching productivity could be increased, and greater use could be made of interactive online learning.

So far, all New York’s higher-education leadership can bring itself to do, as Chronicle reports, is scream bloody murder over spending cuts. Governor Paterson should immediately require the SUNY and CUNY boards, with the help of other informed parties, to come up with a plan for fundamentally restructuring, perhaps combining, the systems.