We see some concerns.

With enrollments down across the system and at colleges across the country, some changes in higher education will undoubtedly have to be made.

The low numbers have hurt campuses, including ours right here in Plattsburgh, as administrators try to figure out how to bridge about an $8 million budget gap.

King pretty much echoed the plans of SUNY Plattsburgh President Alexander Enyedi when he called for a push to up enrollment across the system as a cure for financial shortfalls.

He also talked about more support from SUNY Central to campuses like Plattsburgh and others.

Those plans are fine, but it would not be surprising to see at some point, if things get worse, some more drastic plans put on the table.

The challenges SUNY faces in boosting enrollment are exacerbated by the fact that upstate public school districts have seen their enrollments drop by 8% from 2018 to 2022.

We’re thinking of, dare we say it, the three Cs of restructuring: cuts, consolidation and closure.

We know no one around here wants to hear that, but if we are being truthful about the situation, some big changes could be on the horizon at some point if things don’t get better, and it would pay to be prepared rather than keep heads in the sand pretending that it could never happen.

We know this because we’ve seen it before, and not that long ago.

In 1991 and 1993 Plattsburgh Air Force Base was targeted for closure by the federal Base Realignment and Closure Commission that was designed to scale back on an overflow of military installations across the country.

PAFB survived the first round in 1991 because of its “Quality of Life,” a phrase that became synonymous to the region in the decades following.

But in 1993, even after PAFB was designated as the location of a major Strategic Air Command upgraded mission, the cards fell the wrong way and the base was slated for closure.

Two years later, PAFB was gone after 40 years, and local leaders had to scramble to figure out what to do next. Thankfully, they succeeded and the loss of PAFB has been overcome tenfold.

People will argue that the decision to close PAFB was political and not based on merits. Of course it was.

And if any decisions are ever made to close some of SUNY’s 64 campuses, you can bet that process will be full of politics as well.

Like we saw our community battling with the communities of Loring AFB in Limestone, Me., Griffiss AFB in Rome in Central New York and McGuire AFB in New Jersey, we could find ourselves fighting to outmaneuver the Potsdams, Cantons and Oswego’s of the SUNY system if a decision was ever made to consolidate the campuses.

Battles would also likely be taking place across the rest of the state as the Brockports, Geneseos and Cortlands fight it out, as will the Fredonias and Buffalo States and so on.

We hope and pray that SUNY Plattsburgh can fix its financial deficit and that the SUNY system can find a way to thrive again. But if it can’t, we need to be ready to fight to keep SUNY Plattsburgh here because we cannot imagine a community without it.