Report urges overhaul of State System
Doesn’t recommend closing any campuses
None of Pennsylvania’s 14 stateowned universities should close or merge, but the weakest of them ought to be reconfigured so they can survive within a university system that itself needs a governance overhaul, a consultant said Wednesday.
The National Center for Higher Education Management Systems, calling decision making and policy leadership inadequate atop the State System of Higher Education, said the system’s board of governors should be abolished and replaced by a less political board of regents made up of lay members.
The nonprofit organization hired by the system also recommended something that many have long urged in this state — that Pennsylvania create a statewide body that would coordinate and recommend funding, not only for the 14 State System schools but all of Pennsylvania’s post-secondary institutions.
The Boulder, Colo., based-consultant said the shrinking student market and available financial resources do not adequately sustain the universities’ expenditures including staff levels; the schools are thought of too much as centers of employment within their regions rather than providers of educational service; and they compete too much among themselves when more collaboration is needed.
Some recommendations in the 53-page PowerPoint presentation delivered as the system’s board met in Harrisburg would require changes to Act 188, the 1982 state law that brought the 14 former teacher colleges into a system that today enrolls 105,000 students.
“When Act 188 was passed and you had this [enrollment] growth it could work, but the way the system is now structured and the way decision authority is allocated does not work when you are facing the current set of challenges,” said Dennis Jones, NCHEMS president emeritus, who delivered a presentation to the system’s board in Harrisburg.
He noted that some might be disappointed that a more radical set of proposals including campus closures were not part of the report. But, in higher education, he • The chancellor’s office said, “There is no silver bullet” focus more on policy leadership and closing campuses and support to campuses, has its own costs. and less on management
Nevertheless, the suggestion and compliance; that universities in the • Member universities be worst financial and enrollment funded in a way that recognizes shape would “share their varied circumstances administrative functions” and rewards collaboration; suggested staff reductions, even as those schools would • Ensure collective bargaining be reconfigured to agreements that better strengthen core programs address institutional and preserve their campus needs and are financially identities. feasible for all campuses;
It did not specify those • Recommit to shared governance schools by name. Kenn Marshall, with faculty on academic a State System spokesman, policy, distinct from said more detail may collective bargaining; come in a final consultant’s • The Legislature allow report due later this month. the State System to offer
The consultant hired by early or phased retirement the system under a nearly incentives to bring staffing $400,000 contract also recommended: levels more in line with enrollment.
• The State System sustain Ken Mash, president of a statewide presence and its the Association of Pennsylvania mission to deliver high quality, State College and affordable education, in University Faculties, agreed particular for working-class with the need for better cooperation families; but said the fundamental problem — how to adequately fund public higher education in Pennsylvania — remains unsolved.
“We found today’s presentation to be a bit vague,” he said. “We really need to study details that will come out in the full report.”
State System chancellor Frank Brogan announced the review in January during a state of the system address in Harrisburg.
He said problems facing his schools were not unique to Pennsylvania’s public universities. But he also said the system could wait no longer for an all-encompassing look at operations. He and other officials made it clear that everything was on the table — even how many universities Pennsylvania could justify, given population declines and severe budgetary strains.
“States are wrestling with the same issues we are, leading to the reorganization of public university systems in many states around the country — including the merger or even closure of institutions,” he said.
“Is that where we are headed? Well, that’s a question I can’t answer today, nor by the way, can anyone else,” he added. “But it is a question we have to ask — and we have to answer — this year, not in the future.’’
In the weeks that followed, the system appeared to walk that language back somewhat as anxiety on campuses and among the public grew.
Mr. Brogan said the focus was not on reducing the number of universities but instead on ensuring that they can operate in a more sustainable way.
The State System, whose enrollment peaked at nearly 120,000 students in 2010, has since seen a 12 percent decline, although some individual campuses are confronting far greater losses.
Enrollment since 2010 has fallen by 53 percent at Cheyney University, 35 percent at Mansfield and 29 percent at both Clarion and Edinboro universities.
In fact, of the 14 campuses, all have seen declines except for fast-growing West Chester in the Philadelphia suburbs and Slippery Rock University, about 45 miles north of Pittsburgh.
In legislative testimony in February, Mr. Brogan said Cheyney, one of the nation’s oldest historically black colleges, was insolvent and that several other campuses faced the ominous prospect of borrowing from dormitory funds and other auxiliary accounts to cover campus operations.
He vowed by summer to have recommendations for a system reorganization ready. Otherwise, he said, financial woes could overtake planners and the system “will get reorganized by itself.”
As of this week, system planners said they faced a $72 million budget shortfall and were girding for a seventh consecutive year of enrollment declines. Declining high school graduate numbers that contributed to those declines are not expected to significantly rebound in the near future.
Since the State System began operating, the board of governors has set a base tuition rate across the campuses. This past year it was $7,238 annually for in-state undergraduates.
But in the past few years, the State System board has given more leeway to individual schools to set tuition and fees based on the cost of program delivery, market conditions and in some cases by credit, replacing the flat full-time rate for 12 to 18 credits.
It has fueled what some have described as a worrisome trend — a gap in prices between the highest- and lowest-cost campuses of $6,175 a year.
Joni Finney, director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Institute for Research on Higher Education, said she saw merit in the recommendations, including the regents’ proposal and call for a statewide coordinating board. She said some changes will be daunting but added, “I think it’s a matter of ‘Do you want to survive, or do you just want to keep shrinking?”