The start of the academic year should be a time of promise and planning at New York's public colleges and universities. Instead — once again — it's a time of worry and uncertainty.

That's because the State and City universities of New York, along with the state's community colleges, all face record enrollment increases, cutbacks in programs and services, and inadequate staffing as the state tightens the fiscal screws on higher education.

"We didn't get increases in funding from the state, but our enrollments are going through the roof," said Ellen Schuler Mauk, president of the Faculty Association of Suffolk Community College and a NYSUT Board member who chairs NYSUT's Higher Education Council.

NYSUT is ready to respond, and will be reminding lawmakers that the NYSUT members at their district office speaking against these conditions are backed by the statewide voice of NYSUT — 600,000-plus strong.

"We have a commitment to our members, to the students and to New Yorkers to take on this effort," NYSUT Executive Vice President Alan Lubin said. "In baseball, you get three strikes. Last year, this year — we want the state to stop starving its public colleges and universities. We won't quit until things get much, much better."

Campuses throughout the SUNY system are also doing more with less, said Phil Smith, president of United University Professions. UUP represents 35,000 academic and professional faculty at SUNY.

"When enrollment at SUNY is expected to reach record levels, this is the worst time to sacrifice quality by cutting faculty and courses and increasing class sizes," Smith said. "The state of the economy has led to a surge in applications, as more and more families look to send their children to SUNY as an affordable alternative."

The news from SUNY campuses is grim: 105 faculty positions eliminated at UAlbany; the rehabilitation medicine unit closing at the University at Buffalo's Health Sciences Center; hiring freezes at a dozen campuses; and increased class sizes at six.

Enrollment at Suffolk's three campuses is 18 percent higher than this time last year, and the college has a staggering 431 percent increase in the number of students transferring in from other colleges.

Other community colleges throughout the state system also report large increases. Schuler Mauk attributes the trend to students switching to community college as an affordable alternative to a four-year college during the recession.

President Obama's midsummer pledge of $12 billion in federal aid to community colleges in recognition of the extra burden they are carrying during the recession made headlines, but "I don't see any follow-up," Schuler Mauk said.

This time last year, community colleges faced the very real threat of midyear cuts, Lubin noted. The state ended up not imposing those cuts, in response to a relentless campaign by NYSUT.

"We have prevailed before, and we intend to do so against this year," Lubin said. "This is not how you run college campuses, and we won't be a party to it."