Rhode Island College to suspend 20 low enrolment degree programs. It is a public college.
RIC cutting 20 degree programs due to ‘low demand’ | WPRI.com
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After merging with Webber International university, St Andrew University in North Carolina will close end of spring.
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Follow up:
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From @airway1’s link:
The final day of campus operations is scheduled for May 5, 2025, unless otherwise needed to support a smooth and compassionate transition… We are conveying this news with a shared commitment to transparency, support, and integrity.
So, on April 25th the school announces that it’s closing on May 5 and they’re indicating their commitment to transparency and integrity?!?
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RIC is in pretty strong shape, with a large federal grant to build a cybersecurity program. Eliminating 20 very small majors, most with job placement issues, most which overlapped with URI 25 miles away was probably a smart move. Also you get years 3 and 4 free if you are an in-state student graduating on time (Rhode Island Hope Scholarship).
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Penn State regional campus closures “leaked” 7 of the 12 campuses considered for closure will in fact close.
Penn State president wants to close 7 campuses. Internal records explain why. | ABC27
Interesting statement from Penn State President:
“Penn State President Neeli Bendapudi has asked university trustees to approve closing seven of its commonwealth campuses because the current statewide model “subsidizes decline,” according to internal records obtained by Spotlight PA.”
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From February 26:
From the article shared by @TomSrOfBoston:
Bendapudi has proposed closing Penn State’s DuBois, Fayette, Mont Alto, New Kensington, Shenango, Wilkes-Barre, and York campuses. More than 500 employees and thousands of students would be affected by the move.
So I was right about 5 of 6 in my “definitely will be closed” bucket (I would have cut Greater Allegheny but PSU did not), and was right about Mont Alto in terms of if they wanted to be more aggressive with the cuts. I completely missed York (population between 700-1000 undergrads).
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I revisited because I was curious to see how my analysis compared to the Penn State committee’s.
Quote from the article:
Bendapudi has proposed closing Penn State’s DuBois, Fayette, Mont Alto, New Kensington, Shenango, Wilkes-Barre, and York campuses.
I wasn’t expecting Wilkes Barre and York!
Some of the criteria were demographics and on campus dorms. As someone pointed out in the" college admissions 5 years after the pandemic" thread, many flagships have closed regional branches and decided to concentrate students on bigger campuses.
The article also notes millions were invested to try&attract international and OOS students but in vain since most clearly didn’t want to be on a small commuter campus with 800 students (that number would be acceptable to someone not looking for the Penn State “big school Big10” experience, perhaps.)
A challenge for PSU and PA is going to be how to offer sufficient financial aid for students to actually be able to dorm, when tuition is currently very high and financial aid poor.
@AustenNut : great minds think alike 
I too went and checked 
.
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Hasn’t that been an issue in PA for years?
PA’s mountainous geography also means that a commuter campus outside of the large cities may not have that much population within reasonable commute range.
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Yes, that’s why there were -until recently - 23 PSU branch campuses throughout the state, where only 4 we’re not primarily commuter. Add Pitt branches and PASSHE and you’d have lots of very small, commuter public colleges in every valley or little mountain pocket.
If the model moves to students living on campus or nearby, the costs will change and if the FA doesn’t, it’ll effectively block lots of students from public universities.
That being said, the overlap with PASSHE (regional public colleges) could take care of that since the new governor has set up a program that started Fall 2024 where tuition is covered at the PASSHE campuses for families making up to 85k (=most families in the State) - there’d thus be a transfer of students from PSU branches to PASSHE, which would be a good thing.
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I was also surprised at York, but it has so many problems as a community that it makes a certain sense taken in that context. The others are no surprise. I actually thought it might be more.
Shenango is where I grew up, and virtually nobody goes there (it’s really just a big building). It was too small and too expensive and if you wanted a PSU education you went to Behrend (nobody goes to Greater Allegheny either) . I know it’s unpopular in the communities, esp DuBois, but I don’t expect this to be the end of closures.
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York is bout 30 miles from Harrisburg on I-83, no topographical hindrances.
Wilkes -Barre is also 30 miles from Scranton on I-81.
The Harrisburg and Scranton campuses will remain open.
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Except for those reliant on public transportation.
(Disclaimer: I don’t know how well the to-be-closed campuses are served by public transit.)
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Wonder why Great Valley campus is not closing with just 212 students. Seems that by 2027 we’ll get another list added. As they grow the university park campus the regional campuses will get affected. Altoona has really been negatively impacted by enrollment decline. It’s too close to state college
Great Valley is a graduate only campus.
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Are they going to make any of these closing PSU campuses just online, or concentrate online learning in a single ‘school’ or ‘college’?
In Wyoming, where there is only one state university, there are some satellite campuses and then online courses. Those at satellite campuses get priority registration for online classes which are run out of Laramie. The diplomas all read ‘University of Wyoming’
The diplomas read “PSU” but the transcripts show where classes were taken.
Last I checked, University of Wyoming does cover residential living costs with in-state financial aid, perhaps because putting enough campuses to cover the commuting range of the state population is impractical.
For Pennsylvania, would it cost less to consolidate all of the small rural campuses into a few larger ones and provide coverage of residential costs in in-state financial aid?
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The Wyoming constitution only allows one university (there are some community colleges spread throughout the state) so everything has to be run out of Laramie. Even the satellites out of Casper and Cheyenne are hard to get to for most of the state, so online takes the most of those who can’t get to Laramie, or who need to take a semester off but still want to take classes. I don’t think there is housing anywhere but Laramie. There is a lot of money for Wyoming residents to pay tuition, room and board but there are residents who can’t be away from their ranches and farms so online education is what they have to do.
I just thought PSU might consolidate some of those smaller campuses into online learning and have the base at one of them to use the buildings that they already own.
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