Financial Struggles of the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn
With enrollment rates in colleges declining 10% a year across the country, Poly was losing much of its funding. Without a strong endowment to rely on, poly looked to the state subsidies for approximately 25% of its annual budget (Rowley). With this reliance in mind, Poly looked for a complete takeover by the state and wanted to make the institution a university center for engineering. However this was not realistic because the state's acquisition of Poly would put the state in too much debt to handle the purchase (Rowley). The state proposed that Poly give their graduate program to Stony Brook, but this idea was unfavorable because it would result in Poly losing much of its top faculty to a competitor. However, Poly did attempt to solve their financial struggles with an announced curriculum merger between Poly and Hofstra where both schools will retain their autonomy but offer joint degrees. This merger was announced with the long-range goal of combining Poly's reputable engineering education with Hofstra's excellent law program. On December 6th 1973, George Bugliarello, the former of chancellor of the Polytechnic Institute of New York, wrote a letter to Edward Warburg, a member of the New York State Board of Regents, where he proposed the "PINY/Hofstra Coordinated Engineering Program" (Grad). This was intended to offer "presently unavailable" accredited engineering education to Long Island because current engineering students from that area were forced to leave that area and study at Stony Brook. Additionally, Robert L. Payton wrote to the New York State Education Department that "this significant new education opportunity will be offered without increasing the administrative expenses of the two institutions involved and also reflects our strong concern to keep educational costs at an absolute minimum" (Payton). In September of 1974, PINY announced the joint program with Hofstra that resulted in students obtaining access to both campuses and having the ability to study four degrees from and the Polytechnic Institute of New York two degrees from Hofstra on the long island campus (Polytechnic Institute of New York).