Higher education leaders must commit to lowering tuition costs every year, a Michigan college president said, as Syracuse University confronts a total cost of attendance approaching $100,000 and a mounting financial squeeze that he described as a warning sign for institutions nationwide.
Jeffrey Docking, who has led Adrian College in Michigan for more than two decades, told Fox News Digital that the Syracuse situation is «a bellwether for the structural crisis facing higher education nationally» and is «no different than at most private institutions, many regional publics as well.» He argued that college presidents and institutions have an obligation to ask whether they can «start to turn the dial back and lower costs every year for students,» adding that it is possible if schools work together.
Syracuse University, based in Central New York, carries nearly $500 million in debt tied to new residence halls and is facing a 1.5% budget shortfall as it struggles to attract enough students to cover operational costs. Its tuition for the current academic year stands at $69,180, up from $40,458 in 2013-14, and total cost of attendance including room, board, fees and other expenses can reach $98,544.
The university's challenges intensified in 2025 when a high-profile federal crackdown on student visas caused international enrollment in both undergraduate and graduate programs to fall by half, according to a Wall Street Journal report. Syracuse also missed overall enrollment targets, forcing it to issue emergency financial aid packages to attract incoming freshmen. Former Syracuse University Center for International Services Director Juan Tavares told the Journal that the school «thinks of itself as like an Ivy, but it's not.»
Docking called for a total «reengineering of higher education» to address the crisis, pointing to what he described as a «perfect storm» of declining international enrollment, growing public skepticism about the value of a degree and falling high school graduation rates, especially in northern states. He stressed that Syracuse itself remains a strong institution but is a victim of forces that require broad reform. «There's nothing wrong with Syracuse University. It's a fantastic place and will remain fantastic,» he said. «But they are just victims of what needs to be a reengineering of American higher education in the years ahead.»
Syracuse University Chancellor and President J. Michael Haynie acknowledged the shortfall and said higher education leaders must reevaluate their value proposition to students and families.
The pressure on families is reflected in national data. Total U.S. student loan balances have reached $1.65 trillion, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, as students and families increasingly question the return on investment of a college degree.
Docking has argued that soaring tuition is driven by operational inefficiency and an insular culture that prevents institutions from collaborating as private-sector businesses do. He co-founded Rize Education, a course-sharing platform that lets smaller colleges offer online classes together without incurring massive overhead. Through its partnership with Rize, Adrian College has added 27 majors, 13 minors and eight certificates in high-demand fields such as business, technology, engineering and healthcare. By sharing faculty across institutions, schools can avoid the hefty costs of hiring new full-time faculty, he said.
His efforts have drawn national attention. Docking previously testified before Congress about innovation and lowering costs in higher education, co-authored the book «Crisis in Higher Education: A Plan to Save Small Liberal Arts Colleges in America,» and is credited with doubling Adrian College's enrollment since taking the helm in 2005. The college has been named among U.S. News & World Report's Most Innovative Regional Universities in the Midwest for three consecutive years.
«Higher education institutions traditionally have been very inefficient. They've been very insular. They've not worked well together to drive down costs,» Docking said. «The reengineering has to be a massive effort to bring efficiency to existing institutions.»