Note that this audit is really a follow-up to the Jerry Sandusky case. In fact, two of the three main findings are directly related to that case. Those being concerns over PSU’s governance and Campus Security. The 3rd area of concern is over the increasing cost of PSU’s tuition, with the out-of-state student issue being a subset of that concern.
Penn State supporters are already dismissing this out of hand as politics. They are saying the Auditor General is just playing politics and that AG stands for Aspiring Governor.
@Zinhead Penn State is not private. It is a “state related” university receiving substantial state funding. The governor and several high ranking legislative and executive staff are ex officio members of the Board of Trustees.
“Pennsylvania resident enrollment at the flagship campus dropped from 76.5 percent in 1990 to 56.2 percent
in 2015”
It would be interesting to see a chart of the annual funding revenue the university received from the state of Pennsylvania, for each year of the period 1985 to 2015.
If the State stops paying the freight, the university can either curtail operations or look for revenue elsewhere. Many have done the latter.
Fwiw, most of the statements in post #4 are not in conflict with post #3. Except for exact numbers, a couple of legal decisions, and the common perception of which is called “private”.
Maybe in #3, “similar in some respects to”, or “along the lines of”, might be better terminology than “just like”?
This came up in another recent thread.
In the auditor’s report, they conceded that raising tuition cost, and increasing OOS are normal trends and reductions or limits in state funding play a role. However, they feel PSU has done a poor job of managing it’s tuition cost drivers. The auditors want to see PSU do a better job of managing it’s cost, which would lead to smaller tuition increases.
UIUC: Wow, our tuition/fee cost is way more than the Big 10 average…
PSU: Hold my beer…
PSU has made a tradition out of opening campuses (campii?) all over the state. That is creating all kinds of problems for the rest of the academic institutions in the state. There’s also a whacked state funding formula in PA – there are the four state-related universities - PSU, Pitt, Temple and Lincoln, who get money from the state but literally are private otherwise – and then there are the real state universities, like Bloomsburg and West Chester, who get funding and are essentially governed by the state.
But the worst is that PSU has TWENTY-FOUR branch campuses, and that is siphoning money and attendance from the other state schools, who can’t compete with the brand name. Of course it takes a lot of money to open up all these branches. The average COA at the main campus is around $37k a year, which is horrifically unaffordable for regular students in the state. There is such a crisis of higher ed in Pennsylvania. It’s awful.
Honestly…the study/review should have been in regards to Penn State and all of the branches instead of PASSHE or at least include all of the PA Public Higher Education Institutions. The State Auditor General’s report only confirm this.
Penn state, Pitt and Temple function like Cornell’s contract colleges wrt nys and sunys, but without the generous financial aid.
I want to note that there are also Pitt branches which are quite successful on their segments, where they beat Penn state’s branches (in Western Pennsylvania, Pitt Johnstown> PSU Greater Allegheny for example).
But the reality is that funding cuts were recovered through international students (they increased admission requirements two years ago BTW) and increased OOS students.
The students, staff, and faculty are by and large great people doing a great job but I agree there’s a problem at the top.
@MYOS1634: “Penn state, Pitt and Temple function like Cornell’s contract colleges wrt nys and sunys, but without the generous financial aid.”
Yep. Of course, PSU also offers lower in-state tuition to many more times more in-state residents than Cornell does to it’s in-state residents despite getting roughly the same amount of state support as Cornell does.
@TomSrOfBoston: "Most of Cornell is completely private. "
Yet, last time I checked, Cornell received almost exactly as much state funding from NYS as UVa received from VA. Yet, despite that, the number of NYS residents who get an in-state discount from Cornell is a small fraction of the number of VA residents who get an in-state discount from UVa. And the Cornell in-state tuition is several times the UVa in-state tuition.
Really, the people who should be pissed off most should be the citizens of NYS who get a terrible deal from their state land-grant.
Yet oddly, people on CC focus on schools like PSU and UIUC while giving Cornell a free pass.
Can someone explain why that is to me?
You want to call the tune–pay the fiddler. PSU’s state funding has been essentially flat since 1990. Up and then way down. No U can just absorb such a funding situation.
@PurpleTitan
These divisions are private and receive no state funding. Cornell is not under any obligation to admit NYS students nor charge them lower tuition. No more than Yale has an obligation to admit and fund CT residents.
Architecture, Art and Planning
Arts and Sciences
Hotel Administration
Graduate Business
Engineering
Computing and information Science
Law
Medicine
That is not, by itself, grounds for in-state residents to be concerned, for a couple of reasons. First, it is quite possible that OOS applicants have (on average) higher test scores and GPAs than in-state applicants. In general, you should expect applicants with stronger qualifications to be accepted at higher rates. Second, it is likely that Penn State has a lower yield for OOS applicants than for in-state applicants. If so, then they can accept OOS applicants at a higher rate, because the OOS applicants are less likely to enroll.
OK, now the in-state residents have grounds for concern.
The same issue has been affecting the UC system in California (except that the concern arose when OOS enrollment hit only the 20% level). So the state cut a deal with the UC system: more state funding in return for a cap on OOS students. Something similar may be necessary in PA.
Many public universities have moved to increase OOS and international student enrollment to boost revenue in response to state budget cuts. Nothing new there. What I find somewhat troubling, however, is that Penn State has a higher admit rate for OOS than for in-state students. This is unusual. For example at Michigan, which now has over 40% OOS students, the admit rate for OOS applicants is less than half that for in-state applicants. As a result, Michigan’s OOS students not only boost the university’s revenue, but they also strengthen the academic credentials of the incoming class. This not only aids the university’s reputational standing, but it also makes for a stronger learning environment for in-state students.
It could be that Penn State’s OOS applicants just have stronger credentials than its in-state applicants. But I don’t see much evidence of that. PSU’s entering class stats (middle 50% 1090-1300 SAT CR+M; 25-29 ACT Composite) severely lag those at other major flagships that have gone the route of boosting OOS enrollment, e.g., Michigan (1310-1500 SAT CR+M; 29-33 ACT Composite) and UVA (1240-1460 SAT CR+M; 29-33 ACT Composite). And at 56.4%, PSU’s overall admit rate remains much higher than schools like Michigan (28.6%) and Virginia (29.9%). If the OOS admit rate is even higher than the in-state rate, it must mean the OOS admit rate is pushing 60%, and they don’t seem to be getting a stronger student body for it. Perhaps this is a slightly unfair comparison. Michigan and Virginia are among the very strongest public flagships. Penn State, while it has some notable academic strengths, has never been quite at that level. But the point is, if you’re going to dramatically increase OOS enrollment, at least do it in a way that strengthens your institution academically. I see no evidence of Penn State doing that.