The state Senate has been delivered legislation prohibiting state colleges and universities from withholding transcripts from students who owe colleges money.

The legislation passed the Assembly by a 106-41 vote, with Assemblyman Andrew Goodell, R-Jamestown, and Assemblyman Joe Giglio, R-Gowanda, voting against the measure. Colleges, universities and private career schools would no longer be allowed to withhold a student’s transcript because of a debt to the school or institution, could no longer require a student to pay a debt in order to receive a transcript, and no longer be able to charge a higher fee or provide less favorable treatment of a transcript request because a student owes a debt to the institution or school.

Institutions of higher learning violating the law could be forced to pay a $500 penalty for each violation. The state Financial Services superintendent would be allowed to investigate complaints and levy fines, while students would be able to bring a legal action against colleges that withhold transcripts.

“To begin with, NPR reports that there are over 6 million people in the United States who are having trouble or are in danger of not receiving their transcripts because they are considered still in debt to their colleges,” said Assemblyman Charles Lavine, D-Glens Cove. “Of course this also includes the proprietary colleges, as I understand it, and it just shocked me to no end to know certain proprietary colleges are refusing to release transcripts to students for any number of reasons — over 6 million people. This inability for people to be able to get work for which they need transcripts is a drag on our economy, our national and state economy, and we don’t need that at the present time. We don’t need anything that’s going to stunt our economic growth.”

Assemblyman Howard Epstein, D-New York City, sponsored A.6398 and wrote that preliminary research, within the SUNY system alone, there are 40,000 open institutional debt accounts. Other research on for-profit schools and private colleges in the state indicate that tens of thousands additional New Yorkers are also currently being denied access to their official transcripts.

Goodell said delivering transcripts to students who owe money to their former college or university sets a bad precedent, while those students who leave unpaid debts end up driving up the cost for students who attend that college in the future.

“Everyone here wants to have students have the lowest tuition possible and we want students to have a good experience in college and come out being better citizens and better adults,” Goodell said. “So when we say to a student you can ignore your contractual obligation and don’t have to pay for college but you get all the benefits, it does two things. It raises the cost to every other student because the institution has to make up for the lost revenue. That’s unfair to the other students and results in higher tuition, which is exactly what we don’t want. The second problem is it sets a really bad example. It says you signed a contract, you broke the contract, now you can sue the institution even though you broke the contract.”

Colorado’s House of Representatives recently approved similar legislation while both houses of the Maine Legislature have sent legislation to Gov. Janet Mills requiring postsecondary schools to provide transcripts or diplomas to students if they need them to apply for a job or further their education.

According to a 2021 report by the Hechinger Report, California, Washington and Louisiana have approved transcript withholding legislation as well. Several states have similar legislation pending.