A question of enormous consequence remains unanswered just weeks before a final vote on reducing, to 10 from the current 14, the number of freestanding state universities in Pennsylvania.
It doesn't involve the controversial campus mergers themselves, or job losses, or even the odds that State System of Higher Education Chancellor Daniel Greenstein can deliver on a promise to expand student opportunities, all while combining programs and cutting personnel.
Instead, it's a familiar question aimed squarely at Pennsylvania's General Assembly: How much additional money, if any, is the Commonwealth willing to commit permanently to shed its near dead-last ranking among states in funding for higher education?
Without it, an agonizing four-year redesign will be little more than a Band-Aid, Mr. Greenstein suggested to lawmakers recently.
"That ball is in your court," he said.
Somehow, most other states manage to support their campuses more robustly than does Pennsylvania, according to data sources reviewed by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Lagging higher education funding Pennsylvania would have to double its $1.8 billion in funding for higher education just to meet the country's per capita rate. As public funding for higher education has fallen behind, students have picked up an increasing share of the bill through tuition costs. HIGHER EDUCATION FUNDING PER CAPITA*: State, % increase PA. needs to match, total funding
STUDENT SHARE OF HIGHER EDUCATION COSTS, 1980-2019:
*Per capita numbers are for the 2021 fiscal year.
Source: Grapevine and State Higher Education Executive Officers
Research: Joel Jacobs
Graphic: Chance Brinkman-Sull/Post-Gazette
Kentucky, for instance, spends almost twice what Pennsylvania does per capita. Pennsylvania falls well short of New York, Ohio, Maryland, New Jersey and West Virginia, and all but a few other states.
California outpaces Pennsylvania in campus support. So do both Dakotas, Mississippi and Texas, according to data from the annual Grapevine report on college funding from the Center for the Study of Education Policy at Illinois State University.
Why that matters dominated an exchange recently between Mr. Greenstein and state Sen. Vincent Hughes, D-Philadelphia.
The senator wondered whether, short of a fundamental change in the state's funding approach, "We're still back at this a year or two from now, looking at maybe even more drastic decisions."
Mr. Greenstein replied, "I hope not more drastic decisions, but, yeah, this plan is not a panacea. It is not presented as one."
He said system redesign — and with it, combining California, Clarion and Edinboro universities in the west and Bloomsburg, Lock Haven and Mansfield in the northeast — would not by itself restore a $6,500 price advantage that State System students once enjoyed over peers at other public and private campuses.
"We can't do that on the backs of administrative restructuring alone. Not possible," Mr. Greenstein told a Senate hearing April 29. "Never was possible."
Hundreds of millions to catch up
A couple of weeks earlier, state Sen. Lindsey Williams D-West View, asked Mr. Greenstein what the 14 state-owned universities that now receive $477 million a year would need from Harrisburg to approach that affordability goal.
"To really flood the system the way that it was and to continue to enable us to offer the significantly more affordable level of education that we offered 15 and 20 years ago, we're looking at $700 million a year," the chancellor said. "Just to be clear, $650 million, $700 million a year does not bring Pennsylvania to the top of the league table in terms of investment in higher education. It gets us halfway there."
Some, including Ms. Williams and the system's faculty union, fault Mr. Greenstein for seeking only a 2% appropriation boost annually, less than predecessors. He put the question back on the Legislature.
"Practically speaking, what would you have done with a request for $700 million in a year like this?" Mr. Greenstein asked.
The system with nearly 94,000 students, down almost 22% from 2010 and hemorrhaging money, began redesign in 2017.
The campus mergers that grew from it gained initial approval from the State System board of governors on April 28, setting up a 60-day public comment period and hearings. A final vote is expected in July, and four hearings that are likely to be held via Zoom are planned for 8 to 9:30 a.m. and 4:30 to 6 p.m., on both June 9 and 10.
The public can comment on the plans on a web page set up on the system website.
If approved, the combined institutions could enroll their first students in August 2022.
Uncertainty over classes, sports
Merging six institutions into two — with accreditation authority resting with Cal U and Bloomsburg — would affect some 29,000 students. Planners say that by summer they must start marketing the combined campuses, with a shared faculty and single president, and with a combined course array, some delivered remotely.
But key details that students and families need to make informed decisions aren’t yet known, including what the combined course offerings will look like. Athletics, too, are unclear.
The State System aims to keep a full complement of athletics on all six campuses, but the NCAA has not yet weighed in on that.
About 75% of students at the six schools will be on a campus that houses their major, said Mr. Greenstein, though he could not be more specific without further analysis. Spokesman David Pidgeon said half of students now take at least one course online, an answer that did not address how the share might change through mergers.
Legislative members, in particular Democrats, have criticized those missing details, likening them to a student’s incomplete assignment. "I've got about a billion questions," Ms. Williams said after digging into plans totaling 439 pages.
State Rep. Peter Schweyer, D-Lehigh County, asked if the whole process might further undermine consumer confidence in the universities being merged, tossing them "into a death spiral" for the sake of what he called "a fait accompli" given remarks by fellow legislators.
"I've never seen government cheering the demise of a government entity like I have today," he said during a hearing May 4.
He asked why anybody would choose a school after consolidation, "because I wouldn't," he said.
Asked during a hearing by Rep. Curtis Sonney, R-Erie, chair of the House Education Committee, to reiterate the dire finances that necessitated the mergers, Mr. Greenstein testified that "four and maybe five of our universities are insolvent. They just are."
Every year, he said, healthier institutions funnel $46 million to financially weaker schools but now are hurting, too. Tuition hikes, said Mr. Greenstein, have driven away lower- and middle-income students, groups the State System was created to serve.
"We're out of options," he said.
Pa. versus other states
So, how did Pennsylvania get here?
Why is a state with some of the nation's top universities unable to match fiscal support per capita delivered by legislatures in Idaho, Alabama and Rhode Island?
Neither Senate Appropriations Chair Pat Browne, R-Lehigh County, or Rep. Stan Saylor, R-York, chair of the House Appropriations Committee, could be reached last week to comment on the subject. Nor could Mr. Sonney.
Lyndsay Kensinger, press secretary for Gov. Tom Wolf, said the governor has been an advocate for education since day one, securing $1.4 billion for education, pre-K through college, and requesting millions in additional aid for the State System.
Mr. Wolf recognizes public higher education is unaffordable in Pennsylvania, she said, and is addressing long overdue structural problems through State System redesign and campus integration.
“There is still a lot of information needed on the details of the proposed integrations such as impact on accreditation, academic programs, students, faculty, and athletic programs, to name a few,” said Ms. Kensinger.
The governor, she added, wants to ensure access to higher education without crippling debt and is “prepared to work with the General Assembly to determine ways to address the financial strains of the system,’’ including investing in the system using federal stimulus dollars.
Followers of Pennsylvania politics call the state’s relationship to campus funding perplexing.
"Pennsylvania's difficult budget situation does not explain the state's very low ranking for public higher education," said Ron Cowell, a former lawmaker who is president of the Harrisburg-based Education Policy and Leadership Center.
Tepid funding has been evident through Democratic and Republican administrations, he said, and during control of the Legislature by either party.
He cited factors that include lack of a formal state funding formula, meaning the Legislature and governor make arbitrary dollar decisions. Businesses, while vocal about skills they seek in graduates, have not been loud enough about education funding’s importance in workforce development, the economy and Pennsylvanians’ quality of life, Mr. Cowell said.
Not enough champions
Then there’s Pennsylvania’s master plan for higher education, a document intended to guide decisions by a crowded field of public and private campuses to focus resources and avoid unnecessary competition.
When it was enacted in 2005, the current plan required an update every five years. Ms. Kensinger said Friday that Act 55 in 2017 loosened that requirement to every 10 years. A new plan could be finished as soon as next year.
In remarks to lawmakers, Mr. Greenstein reiterated Pennsylvania’s 47th rank in fiscal support per capita among states based on Grapevine data and its third-highest student costs nationally. They are related, he said.
Mr. Cowell, among others, suggested Pennsylvania over the years has lacked the commanding voice it needs to drive home support.
’’Higher education generally has not had a governor of either party who has acted as a ‘champion’ for higher education funding," Mr. Cowell opined. "Similarly, there has not been a legislative leader in either chamber or of either party who has prioritized higher education funding."
Terry Madonna, a longtime political analyst, noted efforts by Mr. Wolf including a proposal to repurpose $199 million in slot machine revenue, now directed to the Pennsylvania Race Horse Development Trust Fund, toward State System scholarships.
But for reasons ideological or otherwise, "I don't think the State System has what I would call a decent number of champions for public higher education," said Mr. Madonna, who decades ago led the State System faculty union and now volunteers as a senior fellow in residence for political affairs at Millersville University.
The State System dates to 1983 and unified 14 former state teachers colleges. Act 188 the year before created it as a vehicle to ensure all Pennsylvanians could have “high quality education at the lowest possible cost.”
Initially, the state picked up 63% of system operational costs, a share now down to 29%, meaning students and parents shoulder a bigger load. A price gap of about $1,500 between highest- and lowest-cost schools now tops $6,000 a year, as schools made individual decisions to tack on fees to offset costs.
In the mid-1990s, State System leaders asked legislators to boost funding, but were told to rely less on taxpayers and more on private means. Campuses responded with a wave of upscale dorm, dining hall and student center construction projects, many privately financed, that boosted enrollment but left the system nearly $2 billion in debt by 2012. Some dorm work was finishing as enrollment began to fall after 2010.
Jamie Martin, president of the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties, is staring at merger plans most of her union faculty do not support — below 8% in a recent survey — and says there are unanswered questions, from class sizes and job cuts to “how many courses will students have to take online.”
If the state intends to up its financial investment permanently, she said she was unaware of it. “I keep in my mind trying to figure out, what is the plan?”
Bill Schackner: bschackner@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1977 and on Twitter: @Bschackner
First Published: May 17, 2021, 9:11 a.m.
