Higher education leaders should commit to lowering tuition costs every year, Adrian College President Jeffrey Docking said, as Syracuse University faces scrutiny over an annual cost of attendance approaching $100,000. Docking, who has led the Michigan-based private college for more than two decades, argued that the pressures bearing down on Syracuse are not unique to that campus but reflect a structural crisis affecting private institutions and regional public universities alike.
«I think it's incumbent upon us as college presidents and institutions to say, 'Can we start to turn the dial back and lower costs every year for students?' And I think we can do that if we work together,» Docking said. He described Syracuse's situation as «a bellwether for the structural crisis facing higher education nationally,» adding that it is «no different than at most private institutions, many regional publics as well.»
Syracuse's challenges came into focus after reporting detailed the university's financial strain. The Central New York institution carries nearly $500 million in debt tied to new residence halls and is working to close a 1.5% budget shortfall as it struggles to attract enough students to cover operating costs. In 2025, a federal crackdown on student visas collided with those underlying weaknesses, cutting Syracuse's international enrollment in both undergraduate and graduate programs by half. The university also missed overall enrollment targets, prompting emergency financial aid packages to draw incoming freshmen.
Tuition at Syracuse rose to $69,180 for the current academic year, up from $40,458 in 2013-14. With room, board, fees and other expenses included, the total cost of attendance can reach $98,544. The university did not respond to a request for comment.
Docking said Syracuse is «falling victim to the perfect storm that's out there with international enrollment being down, people questioning the value of higher education and the fact that many schools are dealing with declining high school graduation rates, especially in northern states.» He stressed that the problem is not the quality of the institution itself. «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 Chancellor and President J. Michael Haynie has acknowledged the shortfall, saying higher education leaders must reevaluate their value proposition to students and families. The debate over cost comes as total U.S. student loan balances have reached $1.65 trillion, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and as 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 keeps institutions from collaborating the way private-sector businesses do. He co-founded Rize Education, a course-sharing platform that lets smaller colleges offer online classes together without taking on large overhead costs. 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.
His record at Adrian College includes doubling enrollment since he took the helm in 2005, co-authoring the book «Crisis in Higher Education: A Plan to Save Small Liberal Arts Colleges in America,» and testifying before the House Education and Workforce Committee on innovation and lowering costs. The college has been named among U.S. News & World Report's Most Innovative Regional Universities in the Midwest for three consecutive years.
Docking said sharing faculty across institutions through course-sharing arrangements can help schools avoid the hefty costs of hiring new full-time faculty. «Higher education institutions traditionally have been very inefficient. They've been very insular. They've not worked well together to drive down costs,» he said. «The reengineering has to be a massive effort to bring efficiency to existing institutions.»