SUNY Chancellor Nancy Zimpher delivered her final State of the University Address in Albany on Jan. 23, highlighting the accomplishments of the SUNY system over the past decade.

Zimpher focused on praising the inclusivity and affordability of the SUNY system, which is the second-largest public university system in the country. Zimpher went on to discuss how SUNY schools are actively increasing their outreach to students who may have trouble financing their education.

“For many students, navigating college financing is really a challenge, preventing them from even applying, let alone completing a degree,” Zimpher said. “So, to solve this problem we built the best financial literacy tool in the country. Since we introduced Smart Track, the number of SUNY students graduating with student loan debt is going down — by 5 percent in the last year alone. Now, almost half of all SUNY students graduate debt-free.”

Zimpher focused on Binghamton University at times in her 45-minute speech. She spoke about BU’s Bridges to the Baccalaureate college-transition program.

“[The program] transitions students from Broome and Corning Community Colleges to four-year programs in the sciences,” Zimpher said. “A whopping 95 percent of these students finish their degree.”

Another BU program Zimpher highlighted on SUNY’s website is the 20:1 Sexual Assault Prevention Program, in which peer-interns educate fellow students on sexual assault issues. She held it up as an example of positive work being done at the University level.

She also detailed the establishment of the SUNY Impact Foundation, which will operate in a similar fashion to the Binghamton University Foundation, but on a system-wide basis.

“SUNY has created the SUNY Impact Foundation to enable the system – for the first time in its history – to actively seek private sector investment and public-private partnerships,” reads the SUNY website.

The Foundation will allow SUNY to raise money in support of a variety of projects across the university system.

Providing a wide swath of students with an opportunity for a college education that is both affordable and flexible can be difficult at times, Zimpher said. To combat this problem, SUNY has awarded 8,000 degrees to students who have taken the majority of their courses online in the last year.

“Recent studies underscore that state universities deliver real mobility — providing affordable, high-quality opportunities that lift graduates into the middle class and beyond,” Zimpher said. “Access to higher education — completing higher education — matters; college graduates significantly out-earn people who stop at a high school diploma.”

Zimpher made it clear that the SUNY’s long-term goal is to focus on degree completion.

“[More] SUNY students than ever are finishing degrees — more than 96,000 completions a year,” Zimpher said. “Which is well on our way to our target of awarding 150,000 degrees annually by 2025.”