Gov. Josh Shapiro, declaring that the system is broken, plans to place most schools under the same system and lower tuition for low- and middle-income students.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/26/us/politics/pennsylvania-governor-proposes-to-overhaul-the-state-university-system.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Qk0.asM5.HhlIjONROzrm&smid=url-share
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Seems like âmost schoolsâ would be the 10 PASSHE schools and 15 community colleges.
But that does not include the CSHE schools which are PSU, its 22 branch campuses, Pittsburgh, its 4 branch campuses, Temple, and Lincoln.
Perhaps more important would be how to handle the cost barrier that students from low to middle income families face, which is higher in Pennsylvania than in most other states.
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I said in another thread that itâs a good start â $1k tuition p/semester at the PASSHE schools and CCs for those families making under the state median household income â but there are still barriers for low income kids in a state like PA, which is geographically challenging in terms of commuting to college. This plan doesnât address how to pay for R&B.
If you want to go to PSU, this plan would provide an extra $1k PHEAA grant. Not even a dent in the costs of those schools.
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Just reposting this link to the official press release, which has the most details I have seen:
As I noted in the general thread, the part of the plan for the state-related universities focuses on adopting a performance based funding formula run by the DOE. The idea is to end the need for 2/3rds votes in the legislature to release funding for the state-related universities, which is always a nightmare. This is not going to immediately make those universities more affordable, but maybe over time it will help.
But personally, I would say the stateâs priorities should be bottom up anyway. As in, I think by far the most important thing is to improve access to quality commuter colleges. The proposed reorganization seems like a start.
And frankly, I think the state-owned universities might continue to feel the squeeze. Last I knew some were experiencing even more serious enrollment declines than the overall system average, and as the article notes, the looming demographic cliff will not help.
But the idea of doing integrated planning between both those universities and the community colleges makes sense to me. Like there might be some mission shifts and such that could make better use of the existing facilities, make sure a useful mix of programs is available in more areas, and so on.
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As noted by a previous post, rural Pennsylvania geography (mountains) constrains the commutable range of colleges and students outside of the big city areas.
Having more colleges in more places could help here, but then that worsens the problem of colleges being too small to offer enough desired programs and majors.
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PA is definitely a huge challenge topographically, and given the system has been experiencing declining enrollment, expansion may be a tough sell (at least for now).
But with better coordination, possibly PA could do a better job making sure that between whatever institutions already exist in a region, there is a mix of programs that make the most sense for that region.
I donât have any specific suggestions in mind, but I imagine this could involve things like some of the state-owned universities which have experienced big enrollment drops perhaps offering more two-year programs, that sort of thing. Individually, my understanding is they have been trying to do whatever they can to maintain their graduate programs and university status, but as a result not necessarily doing a great job serving local demand for various undergraduate programs.
As said in the press release:
Colleges are competing with one another for limited dollars â duplicating degree programs, driving up costs, and actually reducing access. Over the past decade, PASSHE enrollment has dropped 30 percent and community college enrollment has decreased by 37 percent.
This would go together with the new performance-based funding, which would apply not just to the state-related universities but the whole system. That is the sort of carrot to go along with the stick of reorganization: do a better job attracting and graduating the students with the affordable programs they actually need, and you will get more funding.
Again, from the press release:
In consultation with higher education stakeholders, the Shapiro Administration will establish a predictable, performance-based funding formula that rewards public and state-related colleges and universities for achieving outcomes that benefit the Commonwealth. The formula will take into consideration factors including but not limited to increasing enrollment, the number of first-generation college students that receive credentials, and the graduation rate. Furthermore, the formula will incentivize institutions to recruit and support students to complete degrees and earn credentials in fields facing workforce shortages, such as education and nursing, and growing fields like advanced manufacturing and biotechnology, that will drive our Commonwealthâs economic growth in the decades to come.
Long story short, PA cannot change its topography or the big picture of US demographic and macroeconomic trends. But it can plausibly do a better job using its existing facilities and future operating funding to actually match programs to potential demand.
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The state could dictate that most of the satellite Pitt and PSU campuses close. That would help the PASSHE schools.
I think PSU has a dozen or two dozen satellite campuses; some of them are tiny.
I need to look up their enrollment. And how many kids ever transfer to State College.
Itâs a lot of overlap and it sucks in kids whoâd be equally well served by the PASSHE schools.
This is a long-standing pet peeve of mine and we had a couple of long-running threads about it a few years back.
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With all the talk of the dwindling enrolment at many of the PASSHE colleges, this seems to have come out of the blue: An osteopathic medicals school at Indiana University of Pennsylvania!
IUP currently has 500,000 square feet of excess space and the medical school would use some of that.
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Or become or merge with community colleges?
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As the mom of an almost-D.O. (4th year at Touro in Middletown, NY), I think thatâs a great idea!
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The governor will give his budget address today at 12:30pm, which will focus largely on his higher education restructuring plan. As I mentioned in another thread (one that was about the previous PASSHE merger), Iâve worked for a PA community college for almost 20 years, and weâve been hearing about this since plan late last fall. We probably have more details than what has been released to the general public so far, but still more questions than answers. The governor has made it clear that this is going to happen, and has already put action items in place that have begun the preliminary process.
While I feel that the merger will go through no matter what, Iâm not confident that heâll be able to get the cost down to $1000 per semester, state wide for students who come from median earning households. Thatâs going to be a sticking point in the legislature, and no one is clear on where heâs going to get the money for that piece. I think that most agree that the current system is unsustainable, and change is the key to survival. As PASSHE schools have become nearly open enrollment over the past decade, they have become serious competition for the local community colleges, which helps no one.
I think itâs also been mentioned before in other threads that PA supposedly has more colleges per capita than any other state. We have many small, virtually unknown LACs that struggle with enrollment as much as the public universities. The demographic cliff has already begun in PA, and is not set to improve for at least a decade.
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I really hope the 1k/semester goes through. Itâs a matter of prioritizing budget and PA has been woefully late with that. If TN can do it, PA can do it too.
Access (financial and geographical) is holding the stateâs residents back.
Not much can be done about geography except accept there will be many small campuses. But their organization and cost can become a priority.
A logical move would be to transform the small psu/pitt branches into a unified CC system with clear paths to PASSHE or PSU/Pitt, like California CC->CSU and CA CC->UCs. Former CCs could specialize in career/vocational training (while keeping gen eds for transfer students as they do now) and former small branches could specialize in preparing for transfer to 4-year universities. Some of these would be like Santa Monica CC and others would be more like Siskiyous but itâd cover the whole territory. Branches with dorms could model themselves after TC3 in NYS and have privileged transfer programs to top universities, including for, say, Abington, not just Temple and PSU but also Penn, Bryn Mawr, and Haverford (or any of the many private colleges in the state).
The Passhe system could offer more Direct Entry Nursing but also 6-year DPT and PA programs and something like LECOM but for any school in the system.
Iâm really hoping something good comes out of these changes, especially since the goal seems to be to make the system better even if it costs money, rather than cutting and cutting budgets thoughtlessly while making weird decisions (like building expensive dorms where students commute due to costsâŠ)
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Are fully virtual degrees on the table at all?
My CC already has about a dozen fully online AA/AS/AAS degrees that we offer, plus about a dozen certificates also fully online. I donât see those going away at all. If anything, they will expand.
We have a significant dual enrollment and early college program already, which is also another area the governor wants to expand statewide.
Itâs been made clear that he wants accessibility and affordability for all students. He does not want CCs and PASSHE schools to compete or duplicate courses. Workforce development, AAS degrees, high school dual enrollment and early college appear to his main areas of focus for current CCs. Question then becomes - what about the transferable gen eds for 4 year degrees? If you want true accessiblity, you canât take those away from the CCâs. Not everyone can take a bus and commute from home to the closest PASSHE school. But they can do that to their CC. Thatâs the biggest question coming from our faculty.
That and the unions. So. Many. Unions. I think every CC and Passhe school (or at least most) have union contracts. That will be interestingâŠ
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Thanks for all the insights, this is so interesting.
Things have changed so much in higher ed, including virtual classesâŠwhich means no one has to commute to take gen eds for example. Itâs probably tough for CCs (assuming they continue to offer those courses) to compete with those providers on cost, timing, access. Of course some people do prefer to take classes in person.
Regardless what happens, I hope real change can happen considering the many constraints/headwinds.
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Thank you for the additional info.
For those who are not as familiar with all of the colleges in Pennsylvania, these two snips show the 44 4-year public colleges that are listed in Niche. Unfortunately, Niche only shows 25 spots on a map at a time, so there are two separate maps that you will need to mentally overlay over one another. This doesnât even take into account the 2-year community colleges (and Niche lists 50 of them).
For a more comprehensive, but somewhat overwhelming, map, Pennsylvania has produced this map that shows all of its institutions of higher learning. The green, red, and yellow spots are private institutions, but there is an astounding array of other locations displayed.
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Basically, if you are a B-/B/B+ student who wants good merit aid at a private college, apply to a lesser-known school in PA because itâs a buyerâs market and there are real gems. 
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Oh, those Niche maps above are just the PUBLIC colleges! Thereâs 92 4-year private ones, but that would take 4 separate snips and since the threadâs about the public colleges, I thought thatâs where the focus should remain. But they are on the PDF map!
I think there are about 200 colleges in PA between PASSHE, CCs, State-related + all their branches, and privates. 
The private colleges compete with the public or state related universities though - often, their price point will be perhaps 1-2k above what a PASSHE (or psu branch or psu/pitt, depending on their competition) could cost instate, making them an appealing proposition for instate students⊠and thus reinforcing the problem.
Another issue is that PASSHE schools donât offer (AFAIK) much merit nor anything like the SUNYs or Maineâs flagship match. The 1k a semester instate costs would likely be a game changer for them in terms of recruitment if the state offsets the costs but would likely also force many psu/pitt branches to close or repurpose + throw some of the smaller private colleges into disarray.
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