@Zinhead: Have you seen what Cornell gets from NYS?
It’s roughly in that ballpark as well. Does that make Cornell a public?
I agree that PSU/Pitt/Temple are not true public schools and that PSU is not a true flagship.
I do not agree that the PASSHE schools are just above Community Colleges(for whatever that means). The PASSHE schools serve the majority of residents by having lower acceptance requirements and lower COA(which are too high anyway).
Alabama receives less than than PSU and Pitt. Does that make Alabama a private?
http://www.psu.edu/this-is-penn-state/leadership-and-mission/mission-and-character
From PSU website:
This argument that PSU is not a state university is akin to those insisting that Pennsylvania is not a state because it is incorporated as a commonwealth. There is no functional difference other than semantics.
However, the PASSHE schools have more limited selections of majors than the comparable schools in other states. E.g. it may be hard to study engineering at a PASSHE school.
@Zinhead: Evidently, in your book, a company that is not state-owned and operated but is paid by the state for services rendered is just the same as a department in the government. Is it just a function of semantics in that case? A company that receives state funds is, according to you, no different than the IRS or Department of Homeland Security?
And note that you were the one making the specious argument that funding made a school public or not (though, certainly, the less funding a school gets from a state, the less beholden they are to a state).
That is an absurd mis-statement. Once more from PSU’s website:
PSU defines itself as being a public university.
USNWRR and all of the ranking services define PSU as being a public university.
PSU’s accreditation body, the MSCHE, classified PSU as a public institution.
PSU’s self-selected peer group consists of other 12 public universities.
It is only on college confidential where people think Pennsylvania State University is not a public school.
Here are the PA State Schools…
http://www.passhe.edu/Pages/default.aspx
Penn State is state related (can act as a private - it was founded as a private). Along with Pitt/Temple and Lincoln.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_System_of_Higher_Education
@Zinhead: PSU certainly started out as a land-grant (so did Cornell and MIT, BTW) but at some point, they became state-related (privatized, essentially). People can use whatever classifications they feel like, even if they are wrong, but these days, PSU’s relationship with PA is exactly the same as Cornell’s with NYS.
That is what matters. Not how various agencies abitrarily classify.
This should help understand Penn State’s situation. They can accept public money and make their own rules. Kind of crazy.
“Legally, however, the universities remain separate and private entities, operating under their own charters, governed by independent boards of trustees, and with its assets under their own ownership and control thereby retaining much of the freedom and individuality of private institutions, both administratively and academically.[3] It is the only public-private hybrid system of higher education in the United States that is so construed, although Cornell University, the University of Delaware, and Rutgers University[4] represent alternative types of public-private university hybrids”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_System_of_Higher_Education
There’s a considerable amount of variation (legally and financially) in the amount of state control and state support that apply to various “state” schools. There can also be a lot of variation within different parts of one state school.
For example, in Virginia they have three separate levels of operational autonomy defined by statute for state schools. UVA, VT and W&M all operate at the highest level of legal autonomy even though all are (by any definition) still state schools. Those three also get a much lower level (in terms of overall budget percentage) of state financial support.
And within UVA, two schools (law and business) receive zero state financial support and (in exchange) are granted even more autonomy in terms of setting tuition levels, faculty salaries, in-state enrollment levels, etc. While clearly still both part of a state university, as a practical matter they essentially operate as private schools.
You can argue that Penn State really isn’t a state school because the $225 million they get annually looks quite small as a percentage of their overall budget. But that view is completely bogus.
PSU currently has an endowment of $3.6 billion. To replace the annual state support, it would need an additional endowment of about $6 billion. $225 million year in year out is big money that PSU very much depends on.
Whether a school is public or private really depends upon the question you are asking.
For example, Penn State 100% is governed by the free speech rules of the First Amendment which apply because PSU is “state-related” or whatever term you want to use.
Penn, in contrast, would not be covered by the First Amendment because it is not considered a governmental entity under the First Amendment case law.
I have no idea if Cornell (which is the real public/private hybrid) would be covered by the First Amendment.
This issue has come up before, and PSU has categorically stated that they will remain a public school.
http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2012/03/penn_state_says_it_wont_become.html
No matter how much you insist, PSU is not a private school, and it’s relationship with the state is not exactly the same as Cornell’s.
@northwesty, are you a lawyer?
I’m not sure PSU would be considered a public for First Amendment speech purposes.
@Zinhead: Schools may state they are public or private for political purposes, but legally, PSU’s setup is closer to Cornell’s contract colleges than to most other publics.
In fact, can you point out how PSU and Cornell’s contract colleges differ?
Three of Cornell’s seven colleges have a public affiliation. These three colleges give a tuition discount for in-state students. The remaining colleges do not have a state affiliation, and charge equal tuition regardless of state of origin.
Does PSU have any colleges or schools that charge the same tuition for all students regardless of in-state or OOS status?
It is a major stretch to say that Penn State is not a state school.
For many (but not absolutely all) situations, Penn State is going to be treated like a part of the government. Google up where JoPa’s pension came from if you have any doubts.
100% certain that Penn State is subject to the First Amendment as a government entity.
Northwesty, Esq.
Whether Penn State is “public,” “public but substantially privatized,” “essentially private,” or “private” has been debated on CC before. I think it’s mostly a pointless semantic argument. According to the legislation designating Penn State a “state-related” institution, it is an “instrumentality of the state”—that is to say, public. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching classifies it as public, as do US News and all other publications that regularly follow higher education, as does the university itself for most purposes. According to the university’s mission statement, “Penn State is a multicampus public research university . . .” that, although “privately chartered by the Commonwealth . . . carries out many of the functions of a public institution . . . .”
Penn State does have a high degree of autonomy in budget matters and in all aspects of institutional governance, but that’s not so terribly unusual for leading public institutions. The University of Michigan, for example, is governed exclusively by its own Board of Regents, an autonomous status guaranteed in the state constitution since the state’s founding. But that doesn’t make it private. In fact, the Regents are directly elected by the citizens of Michigan and are considered state constitutional officers; but they alone set the university’s budget, policies, rules, etc., and neither the legislature nor the governor nor any executive branch agency or official has any say in it. Nor does the fact that the University of Michigan currently gets only about 4% of its operating budget from state appropriations make it private as a legal matter----though you could say that makes it pretty thoroughly “privatized” as a functional matter. As for governance, Penn State’s governing body, the Board of Trustees, has much more direct representation by the political branches than Michigan’s Board of Regents. The Governor of Pennsylvania is an ex-officio member of the Board of Trustees, as are the Secretaries of Agriculture, Education, and Conservation & Natural Resources, and an additional six trustees are appointed by the governor. That’s a minority of the 32-member board, but nonetheless heavy involvement by the governor and his minions in the governance of the university, far more than you’d find in any truly private institution.
The point is, there are wide variations in governance models and in the levels of financial support public flagships receive from their respective states. Penn State is certainly on the “more private” end of that spectrum, as is Michigan in a different way, but insofar as both institutions continue to offer deep tuition discounts to state residents and in return receive legislative appropriations to subsidize their operations, I think it’s not wrong to classify both as public. But it’s also not wrong to note that, given the fairly minimal levels of state support both institutions receive, they functionally resemble private institutions in many respects.
I agree with the above with the exception of “deep tuition discounts to state residents”
2016-17 Penn State Costs: University Park (for Estimating Purposes Only)
Costs PA Resident Non-PA Resident
Tuition and Fees $17,900 $32,382
Additional Estimated Costs* $12,230-15,230 $12,230-15,230
TOTAL $30,130-33,130 $44,612-47,612
http://admissions.psu.edu/costs-aid/tuition/
@Zinhead: I’m saying that PSU is akin to Cornell’s contract colleges. So how much do Cornell’s contract colleges charge in-state students?
@bclintonk: “In fact, the Regents are directly elected by the citizens of Michigan and are considered state constitutional officers”
And that by itself makes UMich a public. But most of PSU’s governors’ aren’t publicly-elected and are much less beholden to the citizens of PA.