The board of trustees of the State University of New York voted unanimously Friday morning to close the Long Island College Hospital in Brooklyn as an in-patient facility. The meeting room at a SUNY building in Midtown immediately erupted in shouts of "Shame! Shame!" from supporters, who said the university had not given the hospital, known as LICH, enough support.

The board of trustees of the State University of New York voted unanimously Friday morning to close the Long Island College Hospital in Brooklyn as an in-patient facility. The meeting room at a SUNY building in Midtown immediately erupted in shouts of "Shame! Shame!" from supporters, who said the university had not given LICH enough support.

The board that oversees the State University of New York system is meeting Friday morning to decide the fate of the Long Island College Hospital, commonly known as LICH.

Happy New Year!

Today on "The Capitol Pressroom":

Mark Dunlea of the Hunger Action Network

Nikki Jones of the Alliance for Quality Education

On-line higher education featuring Excelsior College’s John Ebersole; SUNY Empire State College’s Alan Davis & Russell Sage’s Susan Scrimshaw.

Speaking at the statewide conference of regional economic councils, Governor Andrew Cuomo today announced a $4.8 billion research and development investment for upstate New York. A group of five big name tech companies will invest $4.4 billion over the next five years in nanochip technology research, the governor said. Additionally the state will invest $400 million in the SUNY Institute of Technology campus in Utica to help support the potential growth in the sector.

"This unprecedented private investment in New York's economy will create thousands of jobs and make the state the epicenter for the next generation of computer chip technology," Governor Cuomo said in a statement. "In the last nine months, my administration has worked to create a more confident environment for doing business in New York, and major deals like this one prove that the state is truly open for business."

The governor said the plan will create an estimated 6,900 jobs, with 2,500 of those coming in the form of high-tech jobs in the firms involved in the deal. Five international computer technology firms, led by IBM, are part of the deal that will create new opportunities in Albany, Utica and elsewhere upstate.

By Daniel Robison/WNED of Innovation Trail

SUNY officials are under financial pressure to fill their science, technology, engineering, and math classrooms. The long term plan: Get American students interested at a young age in science and technology. While SUNY waits for that effort to pay off, they’ll recruit more ready-made STEM enrollees, like international students from places like India, China and Russia.

“It’s a no-brainer that we should be recruiting those students in these programs. Because the programs will then have students, faculty will be employed, and the programs continue to prosper and grow,” said Mitch Leventhal, SUNY Vice Chancellor for Global Affairs.

International students pay two and a half times more tuition than in-state students which SUNY admits helps subsidize falling American enrollment in math and science programs. Only 12 percent of SUNY degrees last year were awarded to students in so-called STEM fields: science, technology, engineering and math. That’s well below the national average.

Leventhal and other state education officials sing the same refrain of using SUNY as an economic driver, mostly with its STEM graduates. But there’s a downside to the international recruits. They return home. With poor job prospects stateside and student visas expiring not long after graduation, many now opt to leave.

SUNY Chancellor Nancy Zimpher offers a few possible fixes: “Incentivize their staying here. Help them buy their houses. Invest in their research. Hook them up with other entrepreneurs. There are things we can do without a great deal of cost that pay attention to our need to keep international students here. Because conditions have changed and they can go home.”

(Courtsey of the Governor's office)

Governor Andrew Cuomo signed a bill earlier today that will allow SUNY and CUNY schools to increase tuition $300 a year over the next five years--and more for certain campuses--as well as providing $140 million in capital funds for campus construction projects

""New York State's universities are the jewel of our state's educational system, and with this bill the SUNY system will now be perfectly positioned to become the engine of economic growth across the state," Cuomo said in a statement.

The governor's office noted that, over the past two decades, the average annual SUNY tuition increase has been 6.7 percent, which, according to the statement, was well above the five-year, $300 increases included in this legislation.

"Today, in signing the NYSUNY 2020 bill, Governor Cuomo has instituted fair, rational, and predictable tuition reform in New York State, providing peace of mind for SUNY students and their families," SUNY Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher was quoted as saying in the release.

As students get ready to go back to college later this month, men studying become rabbis at private undergraduate yeshivas can now qualify for aid under New York's Tuition Assistance Program, or TAP.

Legislative leaders in Albany said Wednesday they were nearing final agreements on tuition increases at New York's universities expected to pass legislation late Wednesday or Thursday.

New York's State University system is the nation's largest, with nearly half a million students. A new major study makes the case that it's also a powerful engine of economic growth.