List of proposed programs in the article. Represents 11% of programs but a much smaller number of enrollees
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Wow - dropping some core education (like kindergarten, elementary and middle school.
They know where there is bang for the buck. You’d think - how can you drop English? But if they have no students - why would they pay that big a staff.
The reality is - this is going to happen many places.
Some of the major names are a surprise but they’re making a business decision.
Thanks for posting.
In some cases, there may be low enrollment, such as at PSU Berks with 8 graduating its teacher education major in a recent class. At PSU Erie-Behrend, English had 5 graduates, physics had 3 graduates, and secondary education had 4 graduates.
But PSU Altoona’s teacher education major is listed for closure even though it had 41 graduates in a recent class.
Remember that PSU branch campuses are generally quite small (although the seven of the smallest are designated for closure in the near future), which likely makes them inefficient. The state of Pennsylvania’s mountainous terrain makes it difficult for a college outside of the major urban areas to serve many local or commuter students (which the PSU branch campuses are intended to do).
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COLLEGE OF INFORMATION SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGY
– Information Sciences and Technology (BS)
That makes you go “huh?”
Should they get rid of the college? Rename it? Etc? Seems like if main major is no longer important than college needs an adjustment to its name too?
IST Major Requirements - Penn State College of IST says that the IS&T major stopped accepting new majors in 2024. Apparently, this was due to making subareas of that major into standalone majors (presumably some or most of those listed at Undergraduate Degrees - Penn State College of IST ).
So it looks like the IS&T major was already planned to be closed when remaining students graduate.
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I assumed the initial listings were UP as the other branches were called out.
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ahh indeed! interesting they still keep it on the list of majors on main page to me.. (and do think the overall college’s name could be updated..just sure “data science” and “cybersecurity” and “ai” fall under that heading to me? but I get they want them separate from pure CS… (at least the way they are defining AI here..)
Teacher contacts say that current education degrees usually cover K-8 and grades 5-12, so the education closures may just reflect closure of antiquated degrees. It all still has to get through more steps, these are recommendations.
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It has to be available for current students who entered the major before it closed can look up major requirements and such so that they can finish the major and graduate.