Reports

The State University of New York (SUNY) system represents an excellent value to its many students, regardless of resident status. The State-operated system enrolls well over 400,000 students at its 64 campuses, of which 13 are university centers, 21 are colleges and 30 are community colleges. Tuition dollars combined with State and county revenues support the $10.7 billion SUNY budget.

Over the past five years, the average cost of a college education has grown by over 30 percent, more than twice as fast as the inflation rate during this period.

New York State's economy is interdependent with the major U.S. automobile makers through New York State based auto- related jobs and billions of dollars of debt held by New York based financial institutions.

New York State has a childhood obesity crisis. The New York State Department of Health estimates that one in four New Yorkers under the age of 18, or approximately 1.1 million young people, is obese.

Over the past year, financial firms have written off hundreds of billions of dollars in bad debt, which has resulted in a loss of confidence and a destabilization of the financial markets.

Lead poisoning continues to be the number one environmental poison for children in New York State. Lead is highly toxic and is most harmful to children in their early years.