Pitt Titusville in crosshairs of state’s budget battle
Titusville, population 5,600, has neither the bustle of a big city nor even a movie theater, yet for half a century the northwestern Pennsylvania community has had its own branch of a sprawling research university.
But were the University of Pittsburgh to lose its state appropriation, it likely would be a death knell for the school’s struggling branch
100 miles north of Pittsburgh, even as efforts are underway to save it.
That, at least, is how Pitt Chancellor Patrick Gallagher portrays it.
His predication this week is adding to the stakes in an already acrimonious state budget standoff, sparking worry among some and complaints from others that Pitt is simply making threats.
With enrollment at Titusville down 40 percent in a decade, and with operations more than $1 million in the red, Pitt and community leaders for months have weighed options to avoid closing the campus. The options to avoid closing have narrowed to one: leasing space to other education providers so Pitt can maintain a smaller campus operation, while bringing in outside job training and community college programs.
Pitt's board of trustees is to decide Titusville's fate in February. But that could become moot by next month, if there is still no sign of Pitt's $147 million appropriation — now four months late — and the board decides to drastically pare university spending, Mr. Gallagher said.
“If the state backs away, it makes no sense for us to continue to pursue those planning activities, and we'll likely suspend those planning activities, which means the only decision the board will be facing in February will be just the closure option,” Mr. Gallagher told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
For decades, schools like Pitt and Penn State University have operated regional campuses. Population declines in parts of the state have renewed calls by some to scale their numbers back, but others say they provide education access to underserved areas and feed local economies.
The Titusville campus, at about 300 students, is a speck of a place compared to Pitt's overall enrollment of 35,000. It is the smallest of the four Pitt branches.
Founded in 1963, its enrollment peaked at 500 students in 2007, but in the years since, population losses that have hurt other universities have been exacerbated at Titusville by waning demand for two-year campuses.
Nearly half of Titusville’s 275 residence hall beds were unused as of last year.
Even so, in a region hit hard economically, the place remains a major catalyst and one of the city’s largest employers with 85 or so fulland part-time faculty and staff as of June.
Some, including city manager Larry Manross, could not fathom the void it would leave, and not just for students, who have few other nearby options.
“It would have a huge impact on us,” he said. “They provide all kinds of jobs from professors to cafeteria workers.”
Closure would waste months of effort and trips by regional officials to scout potential academic tenants, including a trip planned in the coming days to the Brockway Center for Arts and Technology.
State Rep. Kathy Rapp, RWarren, an ardent backer of Titusville, was upset by Mr. Gallagher’s prediction, too — but for an additional reason.
She said she’s heard from Pitt’s lobbyists and can’t believe the university would publicly use Titusville as a hammer in the budget dispute between House Republican leaders and Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf.
“I’m shocked,” she said. “In some ways, it feels like they’re using it as some kind of threat, like, ‘We’ll just close Pitt Titusville if you don’t come through.’”
She said legislators first must find funding for preferred portions of the budget before turning to non-preferred items, including the state-related universities of Pitt, Penn State, Temple and Lincoln. They are not automatically assured a share of the state appropriation, but nevertheless have received one each year through separate spending bills.
“This isn’t some pot of gold in the treasurer’s office,” she said. “This is money we take from the taxpayers.”
She reiterated a charge — chafed at as false by Mr. Gallagher and other campus leaders — that Pitt and other state-related schools could use their billions in endowment funds to offset budget strains. Campuses say those funds largely are legally bound for specific needs.
On Tuesday, Mr. Gallagher said that in past years there seemed to be bipartisan agreement that, state budget squabbles aside, the state-related universities ultimately should get funds. But he said this time feels different, and that some legislators seem to be entertaining the notion of defunding them. Ms. Rapp said she’s heard no such sentiment.
Mr. Gallagher told the Post-Gazette on Tuesday that a range of options including a mid-year tuition increase could be on the table, even for a university that is one of the most expensive public campuses in the nation. The $11,000 price reduction for in-state students could also be jeopardy, which would make regional campuses less viable generally.
In Titusville, Pitt brings lectures, musical performances and other cultural events that the rural community otherwise would lack, said Emily Altomare, executive director of the Titusville Area Chamber of Commerce. The local United Way held its fundraising kick-off on campus, she said, and Pitt provides the auditorium for performances of the Pittsburgh Symphony Brass.
She said having a university campus helps push back against the notion that Titusville is a remote outpost. She worries that job losses would leave talented campus employees with little choice but to move away. “We need their brains and bodies.”