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april 4, 2017 high 62°, low 40°
t h e i n de p e n de n t s t u de n t n e w s pa p e r of s y r a c u s e , n e w yor k |
N • Restoring order
David Shulkin, the country’s new secretary of Veterans Affairs, has said he will work to reform what some say is a struggling VA department in the coming years. Page 3
P • Mr. Fix-It
John Mangicaro has worked at SU for more than 40 years. Now, he’s head of the MakerSpace in Kimmel Hall, a space where he gets to do what he loves. Page 9
dailyorange.com
S • Strings attached
Several players on Syracuse men’s lacrosse team string their sticks. Take a deep dive into the “lost art” that many of them are superstitious about. Page 16
Falling behind
Tuition hikes may continue By Michael Burke news editor
A run-down house at the corner of Holland Street and Congress Avenue, located in the southwestern portion of Syracuse, stands in an area of the city that has had high numbers of lead inspections and violations. wasim ahmad staff photographer
Syracuse continues to fight for funding to remove lead
Trump’s budget would harm families affected by lead
By Sam Ogozalek
By Sam Ogozalek
yracuse once had a lead paint removal program that was a national model for success. Over the course of nearly two decades, the city’s program received millions in federal funding and successfully removed lead hazards in more than 2,500 Syracuse households. “We were riding high, we felt like we had a great program,” said Paul Driscoll, the city’s current commissioner of neighborhood and business development. But those days are gone. Syracuse’s Lead Hazard Control Program was completely shut down near the beginning of 2016 after being denied federal lead funds for three years, beginning when the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development criticized the city for its program in 2013. The city applied again for funding in March, though, and is hoping to revive the program soon. Local lawmakers said the lead problem is increasingly becoming one that the city needs to address and fix. While high blood lead level rates continue to decline in Onondaga
resident Donald Trump’s proposed 2018 budget, despite increasing funding for federal lead removal programs, will do little to help Syracuse’s low-income families who have traditionally borne the brunt of the city’s lead poisoning problem, city officials and experts said. Many of the same residents that struggle with lead poisoning in Syracuse also rely heavily on other programs Trump seeks to cut in 2018, officials said. “It’s such a small incremental increase in comparison to the cuts,” said Katie Bronson, an outcome broker for Home HeadQuarters, referring to Trump’s proposed funding increase to lead programs and overall cuts to the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. “It’s really hard to compare the two.” Trump’s proposal increases the funds for HUD’s lead-based paint programs by $20 million, but guts the federal agency’s budget with a 13.2 percent decrease in overall funding to $40.7 billion in 2018. HUD’s Community Development Block Grant
asst. news editor
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see lead page 4
asst. news editor
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see funding page 4
Syracuse University’s recent decision to hike tuition for the 2017-18 academic year was part of a national trend that experts said is likely to continue in the years ahead. Annual increases in tuition at private universities such as SU can be largely attributed to the rising costs of running a university, experts said. And with those high costs unlikely to slow down in the coming years, tuition hikes are also likely to continue for the foreseeable future, according to experts. SU’s tuition will rise 3.9 percent for the 2017-18 academic year, marking the eighth consecutive year that tuition will go up between 3.5 and 4 percent. That fits a national trend, with tuition having risen by an average of 2.4 percent — not counting for inflation — at private nonprofit four-year universities between the 2006-07 and 2016-17 academic years. Donald Heller, the provost and vice president of academic affairs at the University of San Francisco, has studied tuition increases. He said the biggest reason for such increases is college’s increasing costs, with faculty and staff salaries serving as the top cause of those increases. That’s particularly the case at private universities, as tuition hikes at public universities can be attributed mostly to cuts in state funding, experts said. “People expect a raise every year,” Heller said. “... If your expenses are going up, for most private universities especially, the main way you meet those rising costs is through tuition revenue.” The universities’ facility cost is also heavy contributors to the rising tuition costs, experts said. At SU, renovations costing about $250 million are planned for the aging Carrier Dome and Archbold Gymnasium as part of the university’s Campus Framework plan. Other notable expenses include the cost of operating buildings, energy costs and equipment costs, said Mark Kantrowitz, the publisher of Cappex.com, a website that assists students in paying for college. Kantrowitz added that those costs tend to increase at a rate faster than the rate of inflation, which he said explains why tuition costs generally increase at faster rates than inflation. “Inflation, the consumer price index … is a basket of goods and services that are used by people: food, clothing, housing, medical care, insurance, all that stuff,” he said. “College expenses … tend to be a mix that goes up faster than the consumer price index.” In addition to increases in see tuition page 4